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Monday, December 31, 2012

Happy NEW Year!

Hey all together!

New year is coming and it’s time to let go the old year. It’s time to forget and forgive. It’s time to breath deep and let go. To thank for every special moment that we've had this year slowly going into the history, but still living in our memories and in memories of people who've shared those moments with us. It’s time to watch the children play and learn something from their unconcern and lightness, and how these days are magical for them.

It’s time to watch out for all things new, to inspire, to wash away the dust of everyday life, as Picasso told it.

And it’s all right by your side, inside your heart, and around you. As I’ve recently read in one of my new books:

...Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.  
Albert Szent-Gyorgyi 

May the new year bring you courage and health and kindness and new creative inspirations!

 

Monday, December 24, 2012

New mug rugs with graffiti-like elements

This post was due at the beginning of the last week, and here it is, a bit late though.

Now I’m exploring the possibilities of graffiti-like journaling and printing on textured fabric, and I definitely like it. And linen/appliqué with free motion machine embroidery are slowly but surely getting the must-have’s on nearly each piece that I’ve made or making recently. Here's only a peek because of some photo processing difficulties, I hope once the holidays are over I'm gonna show it in full size.


In following days I’m gonna be only making some new pattern and hand sewing, any other activity will be postponed till the end of the holidays, as it already is since a couple of days. I'm gonna make some research for graffiti art and new printing techniques, and I'm gonna work on monoprinting - holidays is just a perfect time to nourish the mind with some new ideas.

I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! New updates on the blog gonna come next year! See you then!


Sunday, December 16, 2012

Some random thoughts on creativity

Last months I haven‘t been that often online, what does not mean I had not anything to share. 

In a certain way there‘s maybe some natural process about taking time and getting „silent“ online – the process of making, evolving, getting more critical towards my own results. With all the time spent constantly working, thinking, it‘s somehow getting more difficult to say „wow“ to any new result that may seem worth sharing, but is not "set", hence not really worth being published.  It‘s not that easy for me anymore to get overhelmed with someone‘s work and lose the thread. I got more critical about my work, but also about work of other people, and it all comes from better understanding where do I go and how other creative people make or made their way out there.

It was, and still is normal to discover  A LOT, that may be worth taken along the way. Attention – not ANYTHING, because of course there‘s a painful process of sorting out of „yes, I take it“ versus „no, I leave it“. 

With time passing by and working on it‘s more like: what you take is something coming from the INSIDE, not something you‘ve found somewhere else out there. Something coming from that inner feeling of what and how you EXPRESS THE CONTENT THAT REALLY MATTERS. So you might need more time to melt LOTS of inputs together, process them and make your own way.

And it‘s honestly much more gratifying and worth all the time, worth the efforts, worth the research, worth exploring sideways, worth all the „no‘s“. Right now I‘m sometimes feeling like it takes me ETERNITY, lots of efforts and thoughts for quite some project, to "sharpen" it, to get to the core, to the essential, to the "non plus ultra", but I hope someday I may reach to a point where I‘ll see more clearly, what a project needs and how it‘s all to be done. And I‘ll feel myself less lost and blocked.

I think this is an important issue about PRACTICING CREATIVITY – it‘s all a  great amout of working to get the senses sharper and honed so that some sort of creative instincts can be better heard and understood.

I know, blogging means up-dating as much as possible, constantly generating new ideas and coming out with what I‘ve seen, tried, found inspiring and so on, but this is not me. And this would be not the blog of mine. I need a little bit more of silence and offline time to find out what truly matters for me to say, to express, to develop. I‘m blogging about how it‘s all evolving in my work, and the priority is actually on work. That means quite a rigid selection in order to save more time for creative processes themselves. For only writing about what is meaningful in and for my work. Even if right now it means writing at only about ten posts a month.

This time I‘m sharing a preview from some prints I‘ve made for upcoming projects. Even it it may seem some kind of repetition of what I‘ve been already making and sharing in summer, it‘s an all new level for me – in  choice of colours, materials, phrases, words, but also way of journaling – it‘s all much more precise and meaningful for me as it was in summer, it‘s all somehow more coherent and integral in material-form-colour relations. If I‘ve often printed in summer and decided later about how to use them or not use at all, now I know and feel their future place better. It‘s all about learning to hear and trust my instincts.





Thursday, December 13, 2012

(Teddy bears) and their frieds

Actually I should have been working on other teddy bear and instead of that I‘ve made this one – in plasticine. And it came out quite spontaneously, because honestly I was thinking about making another animals, not a cat.


And most of my projects come out this way – because an idea  is mostly an impatient thing and cannot wait till I get done with some other stuff. And that‘s because I‘m working on many things simultaneously. 

This cat has spent awhile in my head maturing and getting shape, and there‘ve been lots of drawings preceding it and going mostly into the waste paper basket, till the final one today, and now it‘s born. It has decided to get real this morning, so it is. 

Now I get back to my monochromes, pattern making for this buddy, unfelted teddy bear and monoprinting – yes, that‘s the new old thing I‘m experimenting with now, with my little girl and it‘s so much fun. We cannot draw outside anymore, and we oh-so-much-miss-it, so we monoprint.  I‘ll keep you posted.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Another teddy bear

Here‘s the white teddy (actually more white cream shade) number one. The second one is waiting for nose felting. Approximate size about 17 cm standing, very cuddly. My major issue for the next ones from now is fine tuning of proportions, shading and decorative stitching – maybe for those ones as well – they somehow seem very „clean“, and I honestly prefer more „worn out“ and messy look. And something knitted of silk mohair or silky ribbons are also on the list. I guess these buddies will be the only ones I'll be blogging about during the holiday season, as it's easy to travel with'em  - the materials can be taken anywhere - and make'em in-between.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Working, working, working...

Last time I‘ve promised to show the new teddy bears. Well, they are not ready, for many reasons. Among them other projects with its particular problems and difficulties. Among them cold and snow, and many greyish snowy days. Holiday presents as well. I could write a list, but I‘ll stop here.  And I hope I'm gonna show the teddy bears soon.

Today‘s only a very sneak snapshot from my studio table – teddy bears in process, new drawings for my serie The Monochromes, new lace, being only three among other projects I'm currently working on simultaneously.

We‘re now having a beautiful Christmas tree at our new home in Finland, and now I‘m feeling finally the holiday season coming. This year has brought lots of new projects and new perspectives, so now the time is coming to slow down and enjoy the holidays to see people we love, old friends, to recharge, relax, see something new, read, drink some good coffee, to walk a lot, to dream, to buy some new books, see some old movies, to regenerate new energy for the coming new year, for the projects to come, for all the changements that will come our way.

But for now there‘s still a lot of work to do...  Stay tuned, I‘m gonna upload some new posts before I take a couple of weeks off-time from my blog.

Friday, December 7, 2012

A little sewing project in-between - quick and easy

Today I‘m sharing a very quicky spontaneous project. While I was sewing the teddy bear, my little girl was playing nearby drawing angels – all blue, pink, yellow, red. So for a while I‘ve interrupted my projects and we got into card making. We‘ve made a lot. Quickly. And I loved them. Despite my monochrome addiction. 

This is how the idea of a new tote bag was born – actually because I needed to do something simple and get finished fast and because I loved-loved-loved those angels. So while my little girl was making another cards, I‘ve patched/appliqued this simple image and it finished as a tote bag. (Almost)monochrome. 

Here‘s one of her cards, in sepia version, followed by my rough thumbnail sketch and the final result – this is actually my easiest sewing project so far. Though I do think about maybe adding some details here and there, like handquilting or a crocheted daisy. Don't know yet.




Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Graffity. Monochromes. Mixed technique.

Work in progress - waiting to become a couple of pillows in mixed technique. Wool, linen, appiliqué, free motion messy stitching, fabric paints, some graffity elements, crocheted daisies. And no time to write more... Coming weekend I'm gonna share a couple of new teddy bears. Stay tuned.

Monday, December 3, 2012

About simple solutions and graffity elements

Now I‘m back making some journaling on fabric. And finally got to experiment with some graffity-like elements. It might seem new, but it‘s only because I‘ve never talked about it here. 

I haven‘t planned it for that project with my pretty realistic textile collages, that I've posted last week, no. Actually those pieces were meant to be framed with some simple stripes of different fabrics, crocheted elements and free motion stitching. 

And yes, I‘ve followed the plan/thumbnail draft, got bored, and felt, that where was no spontaneity in the piece. It was all well done, carefully planned. Nice. All lined up.  Rectangular. Pretty. Whatever….And boring. With no improvisation. That‘s all.

I‘ve finished up unravelling it this morning and spent the whole rest of it thinking what could be done. I was unwilling to give up. Yes, it would be easy to start another project, but it wouldn't get my mind empty. And besides, that‘s how I manage to find new ways – it‘s all about taking risks and going through the quarrel with myself trying to be honest and not compromising about what may seem quite ok, but truly is not.

Now it is. It‘s not the final version, but the direction feels right. This is what I‘ve been missing – the freedom of following the feeling of the moment, being impulsive, risky, changing the path at any moment. And that‘s what I like most about doing what I do.