On my desk...

The weather is starting to cool down a bit, and I have to admit that I am enjoying it immensely! Being born in one of the nordic countries (Finland) I am more comfortable with putting on more clothes when it's getting chilly, than being 'trapped' indoors with the cooling on because its too hot outside. Add that it has been quite cloudy and rained several times the last week and I am happy! I love a rainy autumn!

I have several things going on on my desk at the moment and I have used my camera often to document the stages.

Here you can see one of the backgrounds I am working on. I'm not sure if it is finished yet. But I really want to start painting the swan that it is meant for. You can see my art journal on the easel with the sketch that I am basing this painting on.

Detail of the swan before it got glued in my journal. Watercolour and quite small. My new art journal is only 18x18cm.  It is painted after one of my own photographs I took this summer. One swan was stretching its wings and I happened to have my camera in hand… Perfect timing! There will be several paintings from that 'shooting'!

The first finished page in my new art journal! Mute swan. Watercolour, acrylic and collage on paper.

Here is a painting I started the day before yesterday, and today it was so far gone that I could start painting the bird. This will be an Azure-winged magpie. This is a painting I am making step-by-step progress photos of for an article I hope will be published. More details later when I have got it send in and hopefully approved.

On the easel is the page from my art journal that I am using as inspiration for this painting. It is a page I did several months ago from a magpie I was able to photograph a few years back in Rizhao.

First layer of acrylic. I'm thinking of continuing painting this one with acrylic instead of switching to oils in the next step like I usually do… I quite like the texture of the acrylic paint here.

More backgrounds. Something to do in-between my commissions while they are drying.

A lot of new gorgeous collage papers I brought back with me from my travels this summer. A book about owls in german from Baden in Switzerland. A book from Jane Austen in hungarian from Budapest. Children's stories in dutch my father picked out for me from his old books. Poems, songbooks and more from a second hand shop in my hometown. Aren't they lovely? As you can see it is not only random paper I put in my collaged backgrounds, I collect them carefully!