BETWEEN STEPS

Walking home and counting. One-thousand-and-fourty-five steps to pass a graveyard. One-thousand-four-hundred-and-twenty-eight a forest. Intermingled amount from the last crossroad to home door (through mail box). Eleven to fetch woolen socks from the entry and nine stretched ones back to the working table. How many steps taken this year and were they all in different places. How many steps it would take to get you all here for a cup of tea and a blueberry cake.

Frankie Magazine (issue 39) has a small illustration and a few words by me about the town I live in. For the image I chose things that are common to all the places that I have lived in. I still think them all being homes of mine.

Snow hills on windows, like secret adventure landscapes. Silent adventures for the last days of this year and a gentle entrance for the coming one. Thank you for this year, thank you for your company!

Hearts filled with eucalyptus, orange and birch tree scents,

Anna Emilia

WINTER WREATH

Rustle of fire, tastes of hot apple juice and cinnamon. Softness of snow. Woolen blankets and a book. While the weather feels like it stopped to work for a while. But it is just so cold that it takes all the sounds and movement away.

The sky is the same color as the ground all day long. In the morning dark, during the day white as the snow. Afternoon it turns dark through blue once again.

Thank you so much for every word, in postcards, emails and comments, even some with your own paintings! They have surprised me, thank you! Thank you!

Stay warm and enjoying.

Hearts,

Anna Emilia

ICE FULL OF LEAVES

After the noon news, I lay my brushes and pens, papers and scissors away, hop into my boots and go outside to check if the postman was busy for me today. Yesterday he was, with a book Vieläkö kukkivat omenapuut? (Are the apple trees still blooming?) which cover I illustrated last spring. It is a book about the history of North Ingria by Helena Miettinen. It is filled with images of old houses and people, their memories about leaving home and finding a new one where ever they were allowed to stay. Written in Finnish. Where old homes used to be, there are now dense forests, but there might still be old apple trees, blooming during springs and dropping apples on the ground during autumns.

A small plate for my cat that I did maybe 15 years ago, or even longer. For Kisse Karvinen. A cat that slept in an onion basket and middle of the lilacs bushes, the warmest and best scented places.

A small ice rink just next to my home. If there was a machine to move a huge brush, I would try to paint that ice full of leaves. And those winter trees wearing white, I would melt small dots of dark wood with fingers.

♡

P.s. Thank you so much for your orders, they surprised me! Thank you so much! Also for your comments and emails, once again!

BLANKETS AND WINTER´S SEA

Dear Thursday,

Some snow and snow clouds that I collected from my older journeys for you. Feel soft inside them! I keep my hands busy, did not have the time to go to buy a Name Day flower today. But tomorrow. Stepping from the arctic weather inside a flower shop feels like entering a rain forest. Tomorrow I can imagine the wild animals laughing up in the trees of colors.

Evening greetings of soft piano tunes and lullabying snow covers,

Anna Emilia

(The painting is for a poem called Alda Aldanna, by S. The photos are taken in Iceland the year 2004

and 2005 while climbing Upsafjall in Dalvík and from airplane while flying over Vatnajökull.)

FLOWERS OF THREE KINDS

A perfect spot to hide, to sketch, to read and to listen. A perfect spot also in the tree to have a small icicle as a companion. Packing orders and bicycling a new snowy way to the town (orders made during next week should reach you before Christmas). In the new home I don´t yet always remember where I have put everything. Treasures are found on the way of searching something else. Small sauna has been warming me. Also your comments and emails, thank you, thank you!

Warm thoughts to your Sunday from by a small lake.

FROZEN GARDEN

Hello dear new home,

Frost is around you, but you stay warm. There is a tree with needles on my balcony and a lake behind it. Morning people ski on the frozen lake, the only sign of the sun is a light pink line in the horizon.

Balcony blooms of frozen flowers, I wish I could pick them up into a vase like in my book Proof of Winter.

Thank you so much for your wishes and greetings. Soon there is a world map on my wall to gaze from which all places your greetings arrive from.

Have a very warm December!

Hearts and cinnamon tastes,

Anna Emilia

P.s. The new address is Palvaanniemenkatu 14 b 5, 33700 Tampere, Finland ♡