World Goth Day!

Night is closing in already so this comes a little late, but I hope all you darklings out there had a great World Goth Day! Has anyone of you crashed the goth cliche-o-meter today? I had a long study day in this class I'm attending, so I didn't have much time for anything too special. Just wore black lips while listening to 80's echoing classics in the evening light. Left the red wine sipping and reading Poe in candlelit rooms with fits of terrible existential agony for some other evening. ;)

And oh, I also made his card today! I've wanted to make a bat pop-up for a while and I think this prototype came out alright, at least the creature looks happy and cute. Hope you like it! ♥

22: A peek on my thesis!

Now that some time has brought distance between me and the graduation inferno of spring, I'm ready to show you something about the thesis. Just a small peek! Movement will come later. 

I wanted to create something I had absolutely no hands-on experience of. It's always a risk but I craved to do a piece I would genuinely enjoy making. So, my love for pop-ups and horror tales was compressed to this within a month:

Can you tell what three Poe stories are portrayed here? These three were in the final printed prototype, but I made some designs for a couple more stories too. I hope you like it!

11: Three little portraits

One night in last December I painted my siblings in old garments with water and ink, locked them inside oval frames, wrapped the frames in a big box and put white and black origami birds on the guard until Yule Eve. There's still an empty fourth frame left where my picture should be, and I wonder if I'll ever be able to fill it.

7: My favourite animation

The world holds many incredible creations of animated art. I especially admire the wonder works of Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki, and the other half of my love for animation belongs to stop-motion puppet animations. But solely in the category of drawn films one tops all others for me: Mononoke Hime. Giant wolves, a deer-god and kodamas, I enjoy it all so much it hurts.

"These days, there are angry ghosts all around us - dead from wars, sickness, starvation - and nobody cares. So you say you're under a curse? So what? So's the whole damn world." - Jigo

Superb artwork and music that plays your heartstrings are of course a huge part of Miyazaki movies, but I also love the blurred lines in the concept of good and evil. Things are not as black and white as as they often are in western animations, villains are just hurt beneath their icy masks and heroes bleed and make mistakes. But there's always a certain sense of hope and positivity in the stories. Absurd scenes also, but that's what makes the films so great! Miyazaki's films often convey a message and clearly speak against acts of war and the destruction of nature, so they're not just the average, shallow happily-ever-afters. And that's why, to me, they beat Disney.

Do you have a favourite animation?

1: Cold White Light

It's time for December calendar again! Something for each day; random things, travel things and Yule things nicely mashed together in no particular order.  Last night I fell asleep instead of blogging so that makes two updates for today!

First of all, five things of the moment.

♥ Snow. It arrived for a brief time in October and now it come back to stay. Yesterday night there was a horrible blizzard monster roaming outside our walls, engulfing the brave who ventured out. Grocery shopping felt like a polar expedition! It's strange how the first days of winter feel so incredibly cold, and by the end of the winter you can easily cope with -25°C.

♥ A glass of port, to keep the cold at bay. Best when enjoyed with some British dress drama.

♥ Light eyes, dark lips. I've worn minimal eye make-up pretty often lately, on some days nothing but mascara. My Illamasqua order arrived and I love Pristine (the black matte lipstick seen in the photos) to bits! Nails are covered in Illamasqua's Baptiste, the most gorgeous purple I've ever seen captured in a polish bottle.

♥ A glimpse on a painting I made on Saturday. I left things to the last drop for the annual group show and there was only one day left to create something.. again. I'm kind of getting a behavioral pattern here. Next time I'm going to start early so that I can have something decent to show, haha! 

Somehow I don't feel like he is one of my paintings, more like an experiment or a sketch. I do love constellations and pretty men though, so I guess it's adequate. Please don't ask me why I paint blondes so much, as I have no idea and I try not to question it.

♥ Reading Haruki Murakami's words. They can suck you into very strange and wonderful worlds. I highly enjoy literature with surreal undertones.

Wolves in the walls

Last week I pulled on my simple painting clothes, picked an assortment of brushes, carried some house paint jars from our art society's gallery and painted for the first time in months.



Each member of our group was free to paint a mural piece in the plywood wall of a local construction site. Impudent vandalism! (With the city's permission of course.) I didn't have any crystal clear image in my head, just a quick pencil sketch, so I just painted and watched where the picture went from there. I think it came up with a little sprinkle of Mononoke Hime, werewolves, an androgynous deity and a kitschy feeling of some social soviet art. And I admit, a little bit of Jon Snow's Ghost too. And also because I adore White Shepherd dogs.

It was challenging to use latex house paints as a medium and even more challenging to get the proportions even somehow right, but it felt so good to paint after a long pause! Painting with huge strokes without focusing too much on the details felt like art therapy, just splashing the paint on the wall and letting the brushes guide the way.

The special bonus in making public art is when you get nice or perplexing comments from the people that pass by. I guess the best comment about this piece was from a fragile-looking granny, who thought I was painting horses. I was aiming to portray wolves, but oh well, art is free for all interpretations! 

I wish I could do more huge works like this, this was my second wall piece and I'm aching for more practice. If you ever get the chance to try mural painting or spraying a graffiti (hopefully legally), I really recommend trying it!

Madness Returns Concept Art Book

I thought I might show you the new books a little closer, they have some truly gorgeous art embedded in them and inspiration is always a good thing to spread! So here's some glimpses into the Art of Alice: Madness Returns. More graphics can be seen in the old post I did about the game itself: *click*. 

I think I'll slip into the virtual Wonderland for a little while tonight, my spider sense was right about the flu and my head can't really wrap around more important things right now. So PS3 it is! I wish you all a wonder(land)ful Saturday!

Tales of a Librarian

I've been a very busy bee this week, there's been much to update about but simply not enough time! Here's an outfit from Thursday, with a light touch of the past. The blouse is vintage, the skirt is my latest second hand find, shoes are by Minna Parikka (unfortunately I couldn't wear them outside, the last time I checked the winter still rules this part of the world) and the paper earrings were a gift from Gloomy Moon. They're made of old, crumbling books, I love it when design and recycling unite!

Lately my bookwormy side has taken hold of me even more intensely than usual, I've gone through the members of my collection and lost my eyes between some of their lines. Here's three of my fairly new purchases, all bought mainly for their visual qualities. The pin-up art book was a surprise find and the other two were on my wanted list for a good share of time. Concept art from one of my fav games, spooky illustrations by the ever-so-talented Benjamin Lacombe and Gil Elvgren's classic pin-up gals, yummy! This is just what I need for my inspiration right now, as my days this month will be spent mostly with my big black sketchbook.

It would be a dream to find a HUGE and sturdy antique book shelf, but for now we settled on this one we got from a friend. It's the third one in this small household, we both can let go of many possessions but books are a tough one to give up. The new shelf swallowed most of our excess books that were piling up on the floor, saving us from drowning into literature. Well, drowning in the words of Gaiman, Wilde or Tolkien wouldn't be the most gruesome death imaginable. ;)

The Wild Unknown

Something I deeply craved for came home to me, after voyaging many weeks across the Atlantic ocean. This deck is a Midwinter gift from my love, and what a gift it is! Insanely gorgeous, mesmerizing and slightly sketchy illustrations inhabit these Wild Unknown Tarot cards created by artist Kim Krans. You can feel the unknown force tingling in your fingers while leafing through these cards and interpreting the paths they show. I'll treat these cards with utmost respect and care and try to gaze at the symbols as much as I can.

In order to familiarize myself with the deck I will draw one random card each morning and study it further. This morning my blind fingers chose the Judgement card, bearing a message I've been circling in my head like a merry-go-round lately, focusing on a spesific area in my life.

Do you ever read cards?