SUMMER BIRCH TREE

Boat trips on the lakes of this city, bicycling from shadows to warm sun. The wind that hymns its summer songs through birch tree leaves with different melodies. Swallows late in the evening. Swimming and reading books, feet in water.

Summer Birch Tree -poster available in the small online shop, here.

July greetings!

NORTHBOUND

Summer, even cold so far, Northern magic at home in the East and in Lapland. Trees that get smaller and twisted on the way, people who get more relaxed. The sun that does not set. The visitors with antlers on greener blueberry patches. Secrets of the North.

Happy summer!

FORESTS, FIELDS, MIDNIGHT IN SUMMER

Collecting small pieces of the summer green. The green that changes when the sun tries to set, but does not completely manage yet. The green that hides inside flying mist. The green that hides inside birch tree forest shadows. The green that surrounds all the Cow Parsley and Clovers.

Summer greetings  ♥

BEFORE THE GREEN

The coldness of the first spring swim, the warmth of the first spring summerhouse sauna. Before the green arrives, the colours of yellows and browns are so warm. When the snow really did not arrive, the whiteness of birch trees has been even more dear.

Congratulations to Annabanana, number 21 of the comments, she won the small give-away! Thank you so much dear all of you for playing along, your comments were so sweet! This fifth year that started, surely will bring some exiting news and tummy tickling. Happy that you are with me!

Yesterday the warmest day with short sleeves and small train trips. The setting sun behind balcony windows with fully blooming grape hyacinth scents.

Have a beautiful week!

SUMMER PATHS

Wild strawberries and strawberries from the fields of my parents.

Ferry rides and curvy forest roads. After a summer storm checking if the tall trees survived.

Warm glimmering waters inside those tall trees.

Warm and sweet, pine scents and first blueberries. The scent of lake water. Could stay in the water until evening.

Birch trees. Last night, Patti Smith told in her concert here, a story how birch trees are girls that danced so long that they turned to birch trees. Dancing forests.

Shadows on silver meadows.

Sunset.

Ninety years old sauna. The cosiest one. Watching as shadows grow taller. A few steps behind to pick a few handfuls of strawberries.

Strawberry fields forever.

A SHADOW OF LAST YEAR'S JULY

Sun wakes me up at 6 am. Fetching newspaper from outside, the sun tickles birch leaves. That green happens only for a few days in a year. The green after the spring rain. Drinking tea, reading the newspaper on the floor. Friend knocks on the door, we drink morning coffee, talk about music. Gazing the clouds in the horizon, will they become friendly or not on the way. 


Friend leaves for work, I choose one of the soft cotton papers. Mixing a few spoonfuls of Payne's Grey Blaulich color. Painting a background, letting it dry. Fixing a few clothes meanwhile, sewing machine hums, small details sewing by hand. The background is dry.


Choosing the color buttercup yellow and cranesbill purple. Leaves from different greens. Frozen strawberries and blueberries with ginger and almond milk for breakfast. More leaves of blue tones on the paper.


The clouds appear closer, they are friendly summer clouds. A turtle and a hare at least, in woolen clothes of sheep. On the sky. Floating in the blueness.


Lunch time, carrot coriander soup. A walk. Thinking how to continue the painting. 


The photos are from last summer at grandmother's. More of those July birch tree leaves in wind.

Just an ordinary day.

Happy Tuesday with sunniest greetings!

BLOOMING

Everything is blooming. Fields and forests, evening sky, night sky, balcony. On Friday also my mailbox with far-away mail. Thank you so much dear Daniela and Nathan! Thank you everyone for coming here.

Seagulls for daddy middle of birch trees.

On a windy weather the lake turns from dark blue to brown. Today it is all silent and calm. A rowing boat is passing my home, I wave behind a lavender bush.

Tea and darkest chocolate, have a good Sunday!

SOUNDSCAPE OF A CLOUDY DAY

Radio plays an unknown language. The language has a name but it does not matter. How the language that I do not understand sounds like? Trying to imagine how the mouth looks like of the person who is speaking. How the eyes open and close and how the tongue makes the sounds. How the eyes move with different words. Or actually I do not know what is a word or a sentence in this language. It is just lows and highs and very rarely some flat tunes. Breaks of sudden. It sounds a bit like some other language or maybe more like the other. But surely the person who is talking now has the most enchanting voice. Music. Echoed with the sounds of melting snow.

3x3, Three By Three Illustration Directory with the painting Heterochromia. (Left page image by Katrina Kopeloff.)

Warm cloudy day greetings to all dear you.

SNOW FENCING EVERYTHING

Weekend of walking and painting. Walking while colorful beetles are humming on the driveways. Fast beetles in herds, slow lonely ones. One, two, hundreds of all colors (but not so many blue ones). Different minds inside them, listening their rhythm of driving. Through headphones. While snow is crunching under steps. Ice under tires. Snow fences up to tights all over anchoring stone fences, wooden fences, iron fences. Borders of roads and yards, forests and stairs. Sky and earth.

Once again, thank you thousand times for your comments, emails and orders, they mean so much and always surprises me and my busy hands painting.

Happy new week, happy end of January!

Wooden Fence, a painting done in August 2009 in Frankfurt for Lifetime Collective.

IT JUST HAPPENED ONE EVENING

On Sunday evening. The winter. Radio was on and I was painting, the next moment I watched outdoors in the darkness, everything was white. It just happened. With its colors and light. Tastes and pinches on cheeks. Waiting for a new snow storm to arrive. The wind is already here, scratching the corners. Better to hurry to the post office.

Scents of green tea with apple, cardamom and coriander, happy Tuesday, so glad to have you here!

FEATHER ISLANDS, LAND OF DREAMS

Is it a tail of a lion which colors all these mornings golden? As quickly as it comes just after the sun reaches above the tree tops, as quickly it also turns to a more colder and brighter color. Just moments. All those yellow polka dots in the trees I would like to protect from the asphalt and a rake with a piece of tape. To make them hang and sway through the winter.

The article that I illustrated tells about sleeping and good dreams. "Sleeping is not about being lazy, but a responsibility." Enough, but not too much while being in the feather islands.

Michael and Neil sent me a wonderful postcard, an original painting by them. Thank you so much!

Lunchtime. Clinking and clanking while a parsnip soup boils,

Anna Emilia

P.s. Edit: The first image was forgotten.

GREY HORIZON, WAITING FOR THE SOUND OF RAIN

Happy dear Thursday,

It is very cloudy and the wind keeps on singing with a strong voice through the grayness. Maybe he is missing the sun too these days. But the first lunch was eaten on my balcony some days ago when it still was warm and yellow light all around. Freckles on their way on my nose.

A new allotment hut appeared next to the two older ones. I already wondered what it is all the banging and ruckus outdoors. It is probably a studio of mine, my company name was approved this week and it is simply Anna Emilia. Whenever there will be a break in the commission works I am doing, I promise to work more on the online store which you have been eagerly asked about lately. Thank you for all the comments, emails and letters dear all of you, they keep me going and I am happy to answer them!

Today I am very hungry. Luckily there is a big kettle of summer soup. What will you eat today?

Have a delightful evening!

SAWING, NAILING, PAINTING, WHISTLING

The small allotment garden and their huts are finally awake in my neighbor. Yesterday the first small yellow flower popped on my bicycle trip there. An older woman was carrying a pile of cut branches inside her fences and asked if I am on my way to work too (in one of the gardens). "I am just a passer-by adoring these small yards. And searching for the first flowers of the spring. I saw one, the very first one, just behind me." "Oh you did? That is a happy thing. I go to see it too."

This morning I built my own allotment huts. They are flood-safe. Maybe also seacoast safe. Mountain safe for sure! But to nail better I need to learn, because I am not sure these are rain- or windproof though. Maybe sealing them better would do. (Other huts: 1, 2, 3.)

Dear Shokoofeh, thank you so much for the award of Tea, flowers and sunshine! These pictures are for you, maybe one day we can drink tea together in a real allotment garden of mine (:

UNDERWOOD AND BIRD GOSSIPS

Spring calls for long walks with provisions in pockets. (Nuts, dried berries and fruits, an apple, strawberry juice. Three small pieces of dark chocolate.) To see who is the most brave to show a hint of green first. Trees or flowers from the ground. Spring also calls to stay home, to paint eagerly while black lover birds whisper their greetings through an open balcony door. Spring calls to realize late in the night that a new day comes and painting and the bird songs can also continue tomorrow. Spring calls as a sound of rain and new wings flying to the roof, I guess it is a big blind date centrum there for birds. Spring also calls just to stay in the moment and watch the light changing.

These pictures are from the year 2007. The spring I stayed in Finland and the summer in Iceland. There were many streets to walk. Many rainy days to read comics under strange light blue NATO-blankets. And a friend tickling my soles.

Happy Thursday! Happy walks!