SUNDAY SAILING

Strong winds and rowing instead of sails. Bicycling up and down the hills of this city. Summer afternoon breaks with friends in square markets in harbour.

Birthday card sketches for a friend. 

It is almost Mid Summer.

Cloudy Sunday greetings, melodies of seagulls on the lake and promises of rain, but it does not matter, a long bicycle trip around another lake awaits.

WHITE PAGES

Books that were bound by hand, carried many thousand kilometres. Accompanied on park benches and in trains. Always open on the table.

Inside: stories, calendars, envelopes, notes, measurements, chances and memories.

The first ideas and the originals.

Walks that were collected and pressed.

Houses, always houses. Homes.

Pages that were ripped away and taped back again. Adventures, flora.

The moments when brushing teeth, humming and washing dishes. The moments when the humming echoes from the dish shelves. Dummies, scraps of this and that. Conversations. Secrets. Dreams.

More of my sketchbook stories at Design*Sponge, a series that I had the honour to begin.

Three new prints in the small online shop. Thank you so much once again for your orders!

It is warm and sunny here. What about bicycling to fetch an apple and an ice-cream for a late afternoon break?

FIRST SILVER FROST

First glittering frost over roofs and grass early this morning. Many beautiful starry nights to wonder what are there behind our stars. Trying to learn new constellations. Hundreds of years ago, how did it feel to sail in the sea and navigate towards the North Star, to home.

Greetings from my painting table. A sketch from the summer and a detail of a painting to it. Many orders packed too, thank you so much! They will be sent today.

Have a warm and calm weekend!

MELODIES FROM TREES AND BUSHES

Days that end with bird songs. Mornings that start with raindrops on the window sills. Turning sunny before lunch time. Knocking on the door, ringing on the phone. Fetching daffodils, passing a blanketful of snowdrops. Naps on the balcony. Evenings to paint.

Kappacavy (10 years old) drew a picture of me. Thank you so much! ♥

Safe travels, migrating birds, welcome back home! (Though a little bit of snow might be still on the way, stay warm!) Always wondering how you make it back, navigating between stars, mountain peaks and over seas and oceans.

Wednesday evening greetings with a sound of a gentle rain.

♥

Hopefully you have been dreaming of faraway places, pretty and warm things today!

Hearts and sweet dreams!

(Previously: 1 & 2.)

DREAM ON A DESERT

A dream last night about walking in a desert. All around was sand, it was night time. It was calm and perfectly cool air. A perfect walk. High on a narrow path of a sand hill. Down in a valley was a white lighthouse. It was very simple, but massive, no windows, just white painted stone. A moon was over it, an exotic crescent laying on its back. The sky was cyan. White lighthouse, pastel sand, lemon juice colored moon. It was so peaceful and so beautiful to look at the lighthouse from above. I wonder how small I had felt if being down in the valley. Next to the lighthouse.

Where could this exotic peaceful scenery be? In a place where the moon looks different than here, that is the only clue. And why a lighthouse in a desert? Neither sea nor water in sight.

Funnily after that dream I still felt like many questions were solved. Many new thoughts.

A drawing of mine in a hand painted-sewn-and-printed tote bag for KVTL. "Mommy does not manage it all."

A bit of colder days, time to breath a bit more freely with new paintings.

Happy afternoon break greetings with a cup of orange green tea.

GRASS UNDER A TEACUP

Dear all,

How are you? How is the season treating you?

Here, it came summer. At least for a few days. Summer birds are here, the lake melted in moments. Gentle waves are floating and water birds diving through them. Eating on the balcony, drinking tea on the grass. Visitors and many sunny moments. A cat visitor too. Sprouts of green mint, basilica and lavender are bending their heads towards the blue sky.

Back to brush strokes and sketching, with happy hands.

Have a good week.

MEADOW HOUSE

A winter storm. Cold and sharp wind and snow on the way to the postoffice. Lady there asked if I really have so many friends all around the world, she remembers all my packages. I wish I do. A long queue behind me, but she continued talking and asking and in the end she wanted to see my work. Maybe there is something we can do for you. I wish they can, or maybe I can do something for them.

At home waited a letter from sweet Anthea. Spoonful zine, issue 3, has a small painting by me, Meadow House, in it. There is, for example, also sweet Melissa with her beautiful fragile flowers. So happy about it. Many winter woolen warm greetings to Australia and thank you Anthea!

Dried strawberries, nuts, dark chocolate and Finn crisps after an early sunset. Always Finn crisps and tea for me please. Cupboards start to be empty, end of this week I will move. Packing huge piles of cotton watercolor paper and house plants mainly.

A lot of wool around me, the wind dances through the windows. I wonder from how far it comes from this time. How many times around the Earth.

Have a good evening!

BLACK AND WHITE UNDER A STARRY NIGHT

Last night in a backyard of a café, just when the stars started to blink on the darkening sky, an old movie projector was turned on. Rattling and stopping a few times, hands holding a heating drink. It was a very beautiful outdoor movie moment and the first time to wrap the most comfortable scent of woolen clothes around shoulders.

This morning a second breakfast in the allotment garden after bicycling with a new flower, cyclamen. Drawing and feeling the summer of the days, thinking of the autumn of the evenings.

From Orchards, Fields and, Gardens by Kerstin is available very soon, I am honored to have my painting and handwriting on its cover. Thank you Kerstin! There are many beautiful thoughts and talented people enclosed inside these covers.

Sweet Jenna made an interview with me, thank you so much!

Early mornings with many new thoughts, stretching and dreaming about a house in a tree, a boat or on wheels. Blueberries and red currants.

Afternoon tea break greetings!

(First image and design by Kerstin Svendsen.)

LIGHTNINGS OR THE LIGHT FROM A TOWER

Waves, hills, open skies. Driftwood, high tides, hay in the sea. Small stones swinging in the waves on the shore of white sand. Black summer nights. A bit of holiday memories of this Thursday when it starts to smell slightly like autumn. Evenings are more silent and I started to knit again one old pile of black thread.

It was very stormy yesterday. The night before the bedroom was lighten by lightnings. I stared to think that the house is by a lighthouse and the light comes from its tower.

"Isn´t it hard to pedal in this wind?" asked the lady with beautiful deep voice in her flower shop yesterday as I put the Lavender, Mums and Houseleek that I bought from her to my bicycle. It was downhill all the way home, a downhill with a lavender scent.

Happy weekend dear all of you with long walks, reading and baking!

P.S. Thank you dearly for mentioning my work on your blogs, for your written words and your purchases (I am packing them as soon as I have had a lunch on the balcony next to the lavender).