DREAMY SUMMER NIGHT VIEWS

The first spring rain, always forgetting how wonderful it smells and feels. How it is soft and silent, a happy one. How it feels to fall asleep with the melody of it. First spring rain, a mood of a kind. A mood for being comforted. 


The sound made me dreaming of the views that I saw from my homes some years ago, in Iceland. The bright summer night light. The open sky. Humming streets. Birch leaves in wind. Landings and taking offs of the domestic aircraft. An old woman with a scarf around her head, collecting all the bottles. Neighbor kid in a tiger mood.


What do you see from your window?


Weekend of biking in spring rain, balcony naps, reading, baking. Eating with friends. Listening to Faroese language. Summer plans with strawberry tastes and lime. Planting herbs.


Never setting sun, it feels almost like it already.


Have a good beginning for the new week!

LAST WINTER

Some winter sun. Slowly it comes and quickly it goes. In blue hues. Warm tunes from radio. Watching the snow fly in wind. Steam of coffee. A few paint brush strokes. A long walk in a finally-finished new and warm winter jacket. A sentence from a book once in awhile.

What will you do today?

Happy weekend!

Photos on film from last winter.

OTHER HOME

A little bit of adventurous landscapes for this grey Thursday. Paths in wind, in sounds of silence. Homes from the past.

Dreamy greetings!

(Photos from Iceland from 2004 and 2005. It is seven years today that I first time landed in Iceland. What a wonderful journey it became.)

WINDY WIND

Dear all,

The sky and the lake wear the same gray dress today. Wind is collecting the summer greens and hurries them to go hiding. Slowly, but visibly more and more every day. 300 km away from here there were many more yellow leaves during the weekend. Still bicycled with Mum to our summerhouse and swam. A theater play about sea and an island welcomed the earlier dark evenings.

While searching more wool for the colder days, I remembered that I have used wool for other things than clothes too. A small exhibition done in Reykjavík with a small group in 2005. Lovely ladies of handicraft shops gave us bags of small balls of wool. With them we built our own wind with a girl called Nadia. With some red wool I drew a girl so big that she did not completely fit inside. Her hems in the wind. There was a parade outside while we worked. We were locked inside and could only see a bit of the trumpets and drums marching on the street through a window. Later a friend that I had not yet met took a picture of another friend visiting the exhibition. The last picture I found from an old email and it was taken by Þórarinn.

Cold fingers of the autumn are searching their way inside this house. Time to close the balcony door and say bon voyage to the sun traveling further, to the other side. Eager about the new season, the new colors, the new scents and sounds.

Have a calm new week with colors of rowan berries and rose hips (their tastes too).

Hearts, from me to you.

(Third picture by Þórarinn.)

RAINY WHILE SUNNY

Rainy while the sun shines. Sunny while it rains. Showers passing, like melodies. They make everything beautiful and to smell wonderful. Autumn. September.

Bicycled to the town in between those showers to develop a film (and to fetch the Tree House prints from the print shop) that has been longer than a year in my camera. What it becomes when there are no memories of frames taken. Empty pictures grow to patterns, colors, shadows. The raindrops on the window are from a few days ago, the first autumn rain. The sunshine on my hair is from early spring that we call as spring-winter in Finnish. The time when it is still very cold, there is a lot of snow left, but when the sun starts to reach us with its long but still tired yellow beams. That day I walked over the frozen lake from town to home. Afternoon sun of winter.

But now the autumn is here. A book, a dark chocolate bar, (a few candies called Iceland with polar bears in them,) tomorrow a train trip, music and friends. Happy. Maybe some yarn to knit.

---
Heippa! Ihana naapurini Julia, joka asuu unikkokedon takana, vei minut kävelylle järven ympäri ja kirjoitti haastattelun kuvittamiseen ja yritteliäisyyteen liittyen. Kiitos Julia!

Two days ago my lovely neighbor Julia, who lives behind the meadow of poppies, took me for a walk around the small lake and wrote an interview with me.

Edit: Now also in English!
---

Soft melodies to your weekend. Stay well!

NUMBERS: ONE

Yesterday, 12th of April, my small company turned one year old. Company, where only I work and where I only work with illustration. (Thank you mum for making my bookkeeping and tax reports!) Little I knew a year ago, but it became all possible. There has been so many heart-touching persons, always interesting commissions, long conversations, very few phone calls but thousands of emails over the seas, mountains, oceans, wilderness. Through all the seasons and weather. And it all has made me so happy. Deeply I thank every one of you who has been there supporting me with commissions, orders, emails, letters, parcels, comments or lately even saying hello in the towns that I walk or bicycle. Thank you, thank you so much.

It has been wonderful and I make my best to do it again this year. With you.

Dear Jill made a small interview with me and I painted a little something about what I saw that day.

These photos are from August 2007, after my last summer in Iceland. The first one is from my grandparents´ garage which never saw a car, but a lot of strawberries. The other ones are from my home town, the three last ones from the summerhouse of my parents. In the last one I am washing the dishes. I wish all the places were as clean as that lake.

More days to color landscapes, to walk and see.

Thank you.

Hearts.

All the pictures are taken by S.

PARTLY CLOUDY

A lighthouse that appeared while the darkness came. A spring storm was arriving and we were stuck in black sand. Just watching the blinks of the lighthouse over the bay of sea.

Hiking in highlands middle of two glaciers. Wondering if those landscapes still exist after the eruption last year. The warmest day of that summer, bare feet on the softest moss. The coldest water of a glacier spring, tasted so good.

Up in the North in sunset going to see birds nesting by the sea. Partly cloudy six years ago in three different places in Iceland, partly cloudy also today.

More calm winds to the other side of the world, please.

P.s. Thank you so much everyone for your precious words in the last post. I will keep the idea about making the patterns into textiles in my mind. Hearts to everyone!

COLOR YELLOW, TUESDAY ADVENTURES

It is the sound of water and the color changes of it that I miss during winters when everything is frozen. A rainbow, or a small sector of it, was seen before sunset on Friday above all the snow.

These photos are from Iceland from the years 2004 and 2005. The weekend and its smiling faces made me to travel back to the treasure island Iceland in my thoughts while listening stories from other places, from other views, from other adventurers. I think that the girl in these pictures is a bit smaller than the girl behind the keyboard, but the adventurer has been always the same. And the anticipator of the spring.

The yellow scarf was crocheted while waiting for the spring. The jacket was sewn during one weekend while being sure that the spring was already knocking on the door. Knocking on the door were also two of my traveler brothers from India and Germany when they always surprised me by calling that they will be behind my door in an hour or so. So they were and we had long walks to a mountain with a small waterfall or by the sea on black sand beach. The next mornings they always visited at my work in the kindergarten and the children were happy to have new horses to play with.

Morning break greetings with color green and yellow to your Tuesday.

RAIN OF GREEN

Just a small reminder (to myself) that under all those puffy blankets of starry snow, green things do happen. Just a bit later.

Greetings from happy drawing hands,

♡

1. Reykjavík, 2007 (Happily walking home with a bagful of nice comics from the best library.)

2. Þórsmörk, 2004 (The hottest day of that summer, glaciers were melting so quickly and we were a bit worried if we get over a river.)

3. Hveragerði, 2004 (Walked as long as the hot and cold rivers were combining the water perfect to swim. Ate pie laying on the grass.)

WHISPERS FOR THE DAYS TO COME

Hello dear Eleven,

This will be good. Filled with rowing on gentle waves, seeing new skies. Warm winds and blooming hills to climb. Days to walk and days to watch. Weeks to paint and a year to smile.

Happy New Year, Let´s make it a wonderful one!

1. My parents, maybe late 60´s or early 70´s (they met when they were 16, in December they had 30th anniversary) ♡

2. My mother´s cousin (I think!), maybe late 60´s or early 70´s.

3. My best friend and me from 2007.

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.)

SHE FOUND BACK HOME

A small Thursday adventure back to Ingria to the home of Liida and Moshka the cat. A small wooden house village Peri lies after a short swaying train trip from St. Petersburg. Firewood, Liida´s kisses, chai, buckwheat porridge and purrs of Moshka. Liida´s childhood stories fill ears and mind. Those stories my aunt and I recorded on tape in 2007, it is lovely to listen to them. "Now I don´t want to remember anymore," she could say. But continued to tell to our eager ears more after a few moments again. Unbelievable things of old times.

"Now my darling, eat a little bit more, then you can have a small rest on my bed". But I played with Moshka, who came to Liida through the fence because there was no one to take care of him.

For the afternoon break I wish I could stop by at Liida´s for a chai to listen a bit more about her life and to see how her harvest of this year was. Cabbages, garlic and apples. Flax, cucumbers and carrots.

The whole set of pictures from Peri can be seen here.

A few lonely snow flakes floating, have a good Thursday!

PATHS TO WONDER, TALK, AND SEE, OR TO BE SILENT

Good morning dear all of you,

This morning is very cold. Nose is frozen. Autumn is for walks with a hot cup of coffee or tea in hands. With my dear friend we have done that a lot the last years, in different countries with wonderful views on the way. Cats, birds, trees, ponds, parks, forests, hills, sleeping beaches snoring. Villages, gardens, farms, business streets. Dogs and markets. Always sketchbooks in our bags with some provisions. To walk I could forever.

These pictures are from Reykjavík in 2006. A bright orange coffee house was our living room, hot pots with old men boiling in them like soups in the swimming pools for the evenings or early mornings.

Maybe I am a bit too early with the autumn, it is still August. At least two layers of long sleeves can be finally tried on in the early mornings. The sky is also changing its palette to a bit colder tones.

Have a walk, a long one today!

Hearts,

Anna Emilia

LITTLE DISAPPEARANCES OF TUESDAY

Everything is hiding today. The sun behind clouds. The new balcony flowers inside from the cold. Bird songs. The rosa thread I wanted to use for sewing this morning became brown instead. One of the rabbits hid inside a lilac bush this morning. Postman is hiding too, should bring some small news.

Maybe I could hide a bit too. Inside my jacket and a big scarf from the coldness while bicycling to the town to find some bigger painting paper. In a café from home. Inside magazine spreads from the café. Into new lands from the travel magazine spreads.

These images you may have seen earlier in my Flickr. They are from Reykjavík from the summer 2006. The girl living upstairs was hiding inside a tiger gardener. The wind hid in the grass and a small cat was hiding too but had left some small paw steps at least as the first walker on the new concrete.

Where do you like to hide today?

Lunch time, from that I do not want to hide. Bon apetit and Cheers with a tea cup!

Happy May, happy day!