This week, I’m sharing a bit about what I’ve been up to. This fall has been and will be full!

Giving Life to a Line

Creating the course Drawing Soulfully has been one of my biggest projects this year. The videos are packed with content, and making them took a lot of time.

Now, it has been wonderful to see the participants’ drawings and discuss them together. Everyone has their own unique line, and I tried to design the exercises to bring that out as well as possible.

My motto is: Art begins with a line!
And you could also say: Style begins with a line.

A line can be so much more than just an outline. It can express emotion, movement, space, and spirit.

Tough Break Ended

In August, I finished a series of 10 oil paintings that I had started last year. That was another big project, but as I was finishing up the final details, new ideas were already starting to pop up.

Most of the time, my ideas are connected to broader themes rather than exact subjects or techniques. These thematic thoughts are verbal, so I write them down in my calendar. But writing is not the same thing as expressing yourself visually. The breaks between paintings are always tough for me. First, I’m exhausted, but as new ideas start to pile up, I feel restless and suffocated. It’s like being a fish without water!

Fortunately, I’ve now been able to release the tension and start the first painting of a new series this week. It’s still in its early stages, but I look forward to working on it week by week.

I usually work on two paintings at once, because that way, each painting has a sibling, so to speak, and doesn’t have to grow up alone. And even now, I have a canvas of the same size waiting that I hope to start soon.

Babies, Toddlers, and Hamsters – One Killed!

In my dreams, unfinished paintings and courses appear as babies or toddlers, while smaller tasks appear as hamsters. I used to raise hamsters a long time ago, and even though I don’t have them anymore, my subconscious has somehow given them a symbolic role.

Usually in these dreams, I suddenly realize I’ve forgotten to feed the hamsters—but recently, I had a nightmare where I was trying to kill a hamster. When I woke up, I knew I had to let go of the mentoring program I had been advertising lately.

So, there won’t be a mentorship group, but if you buy any of my courses, you’ll get access to my Bloom and Fly Facebook group where I am very active!

Sales Table Preparation

I’m attending at least one art fair at the end of this year. I’ll have cards and prints with me, but I also dug out some of my old watercolors from storage. I should probably touch up a few of them from this pile, as my skills have developed over the years.

Do you like to see revamped projects here on my blog? Do you ever revamp your art?

My biggest paintings have their own sales channels, but attending a fair is a great way to meet people and see their reactions. The last time I had a sales table was in 2022, so it’s about time!

Mystical Meetup!

Do you remember when I launched a course called Mystical Minis at the turn of the year? Making that course was a mystical experience. It started when I heard a whisper: “Intuitive Power.” I then connected the words to the Swedish esoteric artist Hilma af Klint. The course was made in a flow state, and it’s perhaps my most unusual course yet. I took its structure from a short story by Virginia Woolf and included a third artist, the English painter Georgiana Houghton, in the exercises.

And guess what? At the end of October, a super-interesting exhibition called Arcana Borealis – Northern Women and Esotericism opens in Helsinki. It features paintings by Hilma af Klint and her partner Anna Cassel, alongside other Nordic female artists. I will go to see the exhibition and hope that Hilma starts whispering to me again. I’d love to make a new mystical course!

More Mystical Thoughts

It’s a bit sad that winter is coming to Finland. Our summer is exceptionally bright, but our winter is very dark. Still, I think the turn of the year is the best time for esoterics, as we find ourselves in a kind of extreme state.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about what our world needs right now. My thoughts are that in the middle of fast consumption, we need a deeper connection with ourselves. Whether one believes in the supernatural or not, there is always something mystical and unexpected in going deeper. I also feel that in art, we don’t have to decide what is imagination, what is intuition, or what is a stream flowing directly from the outside.

Just by stopping to look and listen more closely, we bring mystical depth into our work. Visual poems start to rise, quieting the outer world.

What do you think?