CASA DI FIABA, HOUSE OF FABLE

Home is where your heart is. Or your heart is where your home is. Fire burns where your home is, so your home is also where the fire burns. Home is filled with dreams and magic. Home is where it is nice to leave from, but even better to get back to. Sometimes a home is carried with you. A home on wheels.

It is my pleasure to show the first children's book that I illustrated: a poem about homes and different kinds of houses by Giovanna Zopoli, published by lovely Topipittori.

Home, hem, hjem, heim, Haus, casa, kodu, koti, domicile. All so different, but protecting and comforting. Such a big sorrow to loose a home. Such a force to build a new one. All the history of one house and its tenants. Our nests.

Maybe not such a big surprise anymore which kind is my dream home. Friends know it best: "You indeed would be a high and narrow, wooden one!" What kind of house you would like to be?

Thank you, grazie, Giovanna and Paolo for this wonderful journey through homes! 

The book, in Italian, is available here. Hopefully you enjoy!

Sunday, jazz playing in my radio. Sunny rain shower caressing windows. Candles burning, no hurry anywhere. Autumn favourite, pea soup boiling. Home is today filled with a light that has the hues of autumn. Brush strokes with the colour of warm orange and book reading moments on the sofa, wrapped in wool.

Calm autumn coloured Sunday wishes!

P.s. Almost one year ago.

SUMMER CONTINUED II

Observing glimmering particles with friends. Landscape like in space, twinkling everywhere.

Golden sunset fields through bus windows.

Emerald forests of magic.

Reading green scribbles on a glimmering beach.

Water reflections.

More soft woolly underwater carpets.

The wind was strong in a lighthouse that was middle of a city.

Peeking underground gardens.

Dinner by a windy landscape.

Now baskets full of mushrooms and lingonberries, warming fire and the comfort of its rattle. A few golden rays through tree trunks.

Calm forest greetings!

SUMMER CONTINUED

Little travels with dear friends in the North Sea. Sunny, golden sparkles everywhere. Underwater carpets with gentle waves.

Peeking welcomers, white peaks.

Jules, a rescue seal welcoming on the shore. Almost as relaxed as a bit Northern cousin.

A bird island, a lighthouse island. A sunny island. A bunny island.

Golden towers, warm sea breaths.

Miniature forests.

And how it would look like when the sun sets and the storm starts. Fog signals on each end of the island.

Two lighthouses blinking. Messages through storms and darkness.

Still summer, though most of the birds had gone. A few swimmers, shags. A few swallows. Mostly silent.

Meadow island. Sea scents.

And a fresh water loch with a view. Golden glimmering everywhere.

Today the autumn arrived. Soft long sleeves, pitch black starry skies. Swimming in a lake watching the Milky Way. Happy September!

MAY BOUQUET IN A CLOUDY LATE SUMMER'S DAY

Sunny days, coffee in the harbour, long bicycle trips on hills and around lakes. Wrapped inside a woollen blanket when the sun sets, gazing the small lake from my balcony. The scent of fresh late summer evenings, with almost ripen apples from all directions. The scent of fire as people start to heat their houses with fireplaces, smoke curling up from chimneys.

Here the autumn is close, in my summer holiday destination the sun sets for the first time in four months tomorrow. On the other side of the world, the spring arrives. 

The first peonies in old pink and succulents in spring green are colouring the landscape of sunshine and warm winds. Warmest congratulations to R & G in Paris, who ordered this custom painting for their wedding invitation ♥ 

You can find a few prints of this painting in my small online shop.

Clouds on the sky, shadows hiding. Colours of today on my painting table are mint green, ice blue and rowen orange.

Second pot of green tea, calm wishes!

THE KALEVALA, A MUSICAL TOY

In 1835 was published the first version of the Finnish national epic, Kalevala. It is a story about the creation of the world and adventure of witches and nature, collected and compiled from oral folklore by physician and philologist Elias Lönnrot.

He made eleven field trips to collect the stories from people. Väinämöinen is one of the main characters of the epic, singing magically and playing a kantele that he built of the jawbones of a pike. There are also a bear, a swan, boats, the god of the sky Ukko, singing contests, a magical talisman and many great journeys.

In 2010 my friends Oliver Blank and Kalle Karjalainen had the idea about making a small musical toy and interactive painting about this great story. It took a little while. This summer we received a small fund for it, thank you for that Kalevala Korun Kulttuurisäätiö! Today you can finally see the app and download it for free for your iPhone or iPad.

Hopefully you enjoy it! 

Happy melodies of a rainy day. ♥

The Kalevala, an interactive painting and musical toy

Concept and music by Oliver Blank

Illustrations by Anna Emilia Laitinen

Programming by Kalle Karjalainen

(The photos are by Mr. Oliver Blank.)

...

Heippa! 

Pieni sovelmamme, The Kalevala, on viimein saatavilla täältä.

Onnellista sateenropinaa!

POLAR SUMMER POSTCARDS II

It is the sky that gives all that space to breath. Those trees that are not there, making everything to look like all is very close to you. The roots of mountains, their tops and the valleys in between them.

Then you see a small rock and think that it is very far and very big when you reach it. But it is just very close and very small.

There are the stones that hide secrets inside. Forty to sixty million years old secrets of plants that were hiding under a glacier all this time. Plants that grew there when it was very warm. Now it is all in permafrost.

The village that naps in sunlight during night time. The long shadows. The wind that does not reach anything, and comes from the sea or the glaciers. The moment when the wind stops.

The line between the known and unknown. The touchable.

The clouds that can travel to see it all as long as they do not get stuck on mountain tops. Some of them were hanging in the same place for three days.

The colours that sometimes were there and then it all could turn to black and white.

Summer continues. In Finland it is very green and warm, compared to the polar images above. The thunder storm of last night did not come. More boat trips, statue museum, bicycling, swimming. The starry nights are here. Still I continue to think of those landscapes. 

Have a beautiful weekend!

POLAR SUMMER POSTCARDS

The mining village that was abandoned, and looked after by the glacier. The light on the glacier that coloured the whites, the greys and the turquoises. The sea that had white peaks on waves once in a while. 

A walk to pass mountains. To a valley with a lake and a red house. Tea water boiling, a greeting message on the table from the previous visitor. Beds to sleep. Small glacier streams close by. Reindeers on the moss. All so silent. The thought about the backyards of mountains, what lies there?

Mountain Avens, a hint of blue sky. Peeking glaciers on all directions. The sound of running water in the glacial streams.

A night boat trip. The light at midnight. The reflections of the glacier so alive. By boat, going around small ice floes. Curvy water road. Puffins, Little Auks.

The silence with songs of birds. Searching for the deepest turquoise. Secrets for sure.

A night floater, brushing his/her beard.

Water roads

Night boat trip adventures. ♥

Happy August, have a calm weekend!