Every Person In Pori

I've been following a cool blog called Every Person In New York which is one man's mission to draw every person in New York. Last Monday I had a chance to do a bit the same here in Pori (doesn't Pori sound just as exciting as New York!?) when our drawing teacher sent us to take over the city with our pencils and charcoals for hour and a half.

Since it is pretty cold outside (as you can see from the dressing of my models) we decided to take over a cafe table by the Pori market square and sit indoors while drawing the people outside walking or waiting their bus. Most of the drawings are done less than half a minute (since the people kept moving out of sight so fast).

When it gets warmer and it is nicer to draw outdoors I'm going to actually try to draw every person in Pori. Since it is only 83 000 people here (and 8 300 000 in New York) it should be easy as eating a cake, right? :)

Winter Sky

Shadow Theatre Croquis

The first art - drawing painting - class for this Spring semester started with a new experimental technique. Our teacher Paavo Paunu wanted to start this semester with drawing since we mostly painted during the whole Autumn.

He had arranged a shadow-theatre-stage-like thing to our art studio. Two students at the time were given words/themes to "act" and express together with some props behind the see-trough fabric.
The words were everything from Shiva to worker's lunch sandwich.

The students on the other side kept drawing very fast croquis - from 1min to 2min (the postures behind the curtain were not easiest to hold on very much longer).

In the end of the session we spread out all the works to the floor. The idea was that all the drawings were shared/joint (nobody would mark their own works).

From all these works Paavo selected the ones he found most intriguing.

We look carefully trough them analyzing the expression and the use of line. It was sort of an inkblot test.

Very interesting indeed. Thanks for reading!

Year of the Dragon

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

(...I hope I'm spelling that right...)

Happy Chinese New Year!

Today on the 23rd of January 2012 the year of the Dragon has started. So I drew a dragon for you. He looks a bit sleepy. The reason for that might be that I drew him in the morning before going to school.

According to this site the year of the Dragon will be a grand one:

"The Dragon is in fact the major symbol of good fortune in Chinese Astrology. The Dragon constellation, for example, is accorded the honor of being the guardian of the Eastern sky. According to tradition the Dragon brings in the Four Blessings of the East: wealth, virtue, harmony and longevity.

Indeed, of the 12 signs of the Chinese zodiac the Dragon is the most special, as it is a mystical being rather than an earthly animal. It is sometimes called a karmic sign. In this context that means we can expect grand things this year. Bigger than life is very much a Dragon thing. There will be spectacular successes as well as crash and burn failures."

Sounds good. So let's get the party started! :)

Lecture Theft

How would you feel about going to a series of Lectures with the theme From Lemon to an Apple? - The acts of love in the style of sky metaphors. The lectures contain specific topics from angels to little birds from North-Israel and raw food for dogs.

Yesterday at school (as part of the Situationist course) we had four hours to make a "lecture theft". Browse trough the announcements of lectures held in Pori area and create our own collection of them: a lecture series of our own. The only rule was that all the lectures were real so that people could actually attend. Then decide what is the theme of the lecture series and create an advertising poster for it. The results were quite fantastic.

I grouped up with the talented Vesa Kuula (the apple illustration is made by him (and in about 30min or so) and we created this happy collection of lectures together. Feel free to try it out! You can also email us to uusisuuntapori@gmail.com.

Drifting In Manhattan

Yesterday I did a little sightseeing in Manhattan... but in PORI.

Scribble Situation

The school semester started on Monday. We've had interesting lectures about Situationists.

Very interesting indeed!

...But still I cannot help but falling a sleep since my rhythm of the day went upside down during the holidays (usually went to bed after 5am and sleeping until 2pm).

So the best I can do is to sketch and scribble. Keeping my hands busy makes it easier to stay awake and focused. Today I filled 12 pages of my sketchbook. Some of the drawings might turn into postcards later.

For the rest of the week we have time to realize our own situation or "situationist act" if I may say so. I'll do post about that later! Now it's good time to go asleep... Zzzzzzzzzz...

Year 2011

A year just ended and brand new one started. This post is dedicated to the year 2011 and things about it I'm more than grateful.

Lots of ACTING in theatre gigs, training improvisation, speaking role in professional television production and interesting independent short film projects like Keiju (photographs from the set of Keiju with Heini Haapaniemi).

I wrote a PLAY! Or we did together with Linnea and Sini. The play was called SimpanssiSpektaakkeli and it was performed by the theatre of Zoo last Eastern in the Helsinki Zoo Korkeasaari. I played the part of the dull professor (photograph below).

Actually going trough with the KALEVAN KIERROS half which is a sport challenge of six endurance sports (speed skating, country cross skiing, running, rowing a boat, bicycling, orienteering) during one year. Just to accomplish that (even though my ranking is not something I could brag about) made me feel that I can do just about anything I set my mind to.

Being accepted to the MASTER PROGRAM in VISUAL CULTURE in the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture. I hadn't heard about the study program Visual Culture before my dad gave me a piece of paper he had cut from the newspaper advertising the program and said "This sounds like your thing". I was skeptical at first but when found out more I was really excited so I applied. I am super happy I did that and was accepted since I've truly loved my studies here. This is a place where working with multiple materials is encouraged and there is active conversation about art theory and the philosophy about one's own art making.

P.S. If you feel like this might be your school too check out the application progress that has just started for the next semester.

Moving to the beautiful city of PORI, taking over its streets, meeting its people and getting new FRIENDS for a life time.

Starting the studies and moving to Pori also brought SOMEONE very SPECIAL into my life. Among my student colleagues I found a handsome, talented and simply unique companion. Funny thing is that after living few hundred meters apart from each other in Helsinki for almost a decade we had to come all the way to Pori to meet. But I'm a strong believer that things happen as they do for a reason and I feel lucky I've found him now.

THANK YOU marvelous year 2011!

WELCOME new adventures of the year 2012!

When You Cannot Be a Marmot You Draw One

Couldn't get sleep yet so instead I drew marmots.