Happy New Year!

Happy, creative and a blessed new year to every one!!!

2016 flew past at the same time that it felt like it lasted forever.... Thinking back I almost can't believe all the things I got to do and see...

- January: we moved apartment.
- February: we celebrated my dads birthday with my whole family in Thailand.
- March: studio time
- April: A 2 weeks trip to New Orleans!!
- May/June: studio time
- July: we spend a month in Finland almost exclusively living on our new boat.
- August: I visited The Netherlands and enjoyed a cousins wedding. I also had an Exhibition in Gallery Karaija in Inkoo (Finland). I also flew for a few days to Bergen in Norway to visit my cousin there and meet my new family member Lisanne, by the time only 4 weeks old!
- September: Back to Shanghai for a while. A 2 weeks trip to Singapore and Indonesia to visit my bestie.
- October: Tried to start getting something done in the studio again.
- November/December: Back in Finland for a few weeks, enjoying a little snow for the first time in 6 years...
- December: Celebrating Christmas and new year in Vietnam and Cambodia...

You see? It has been a busy, quite crazy year jumping from one country to another, and trying to get a little bit of painting done in between it all.... But also quite a wonderful and very VERY enjoyable and fantastic year!!

The new year has started of quite nice as well: I have my first ever exhibition in Shanghai coming up in April... With help from some beautiful people I got in contact with a Gallery that was happy to receive me. The plan right now is that I will exhibit there the last 2 weeks of April. But before that the Gallery owner will take a few of my paintings with her to an art fair in Singapore (this month) and to another art fair in Hong Kong (in March). And: she liked one of my paintings (one of the kingfishers) so much that she bought it straight away for herself... *doing a happy dance*

Looking through my older blogpost I realise that I never did show you pictures from either Thailand nor The Netherlands... I have also been thinking this month of how I want to go further with this blog. What is my 'plan' for it. Shall I continue as before, or should I start a separate blog for my travels? When I first started this blog it was to be an update of my life abroad for family and friends home in Finland. Quite fast it became more of an art blog, with photos of my travels thrown in between. What do you think?
Then again, my travels do influence my painting, so in that way they are related...

Anyhow, before I share some pictures from the beautiful Vietnam and Cambodia (either here or in a new blog, lets see....) I have a few pics from the studio for you!

I have a new toy!!! I will try and start making my own stencils from now on! There are a few good 'printing' or cutting machines for stencils, but the one I want is not available here in China. They do not ship these machines internationally, so I just have to wait until I find a retailer who sells it!

Backgrund for flowers. 

I never got this one finish for the summer exhibition, so I brought it back to China. Now I am trying to get it done for April instead. I have worked a little on the background as I thought it was little too bright, and now I will add a few layers of oil on the bird to get those feathers looking good.

Some ideas looks better as sketches in a book than they do on canvas. I guess I am overworking and overthinking it a bit, so I will continue experimenting until I am satisfied. I will either try to paint a flower on this background, or start over. Starting over should give me a lovely texture with this underneath if nothing else...

Bigger canvases in the making. Sometimes it feels really freeing and good to paint on bigger canvases! And I need a few big ones to fill the walls in the gallery for my up coming exhibition.