During the spring term on the painting course, this was the last painting I finished. I think it just might be my best so far. The teacher agreed that I’ve come a long way from the start of the autumn term.

I paid special attention to making the eyes realistic, and I’m very proud of their look. The face overall has a pretty good resemblance to the model, Cillian Murphy. He’s been one of my favorite actors ever since 28 days later, because he has such a distinctive, peculiar face. High and sharp cheek bones, gaunt cheeks, full lips and very light blue eyes. Very strange, which I like.

(I no longer know how to link the small pic to a larger one on WordPress, thanks so much update 3.01)

There are some  minor things off about the face, but I came to a point where making any changes would have probably jeopardized the painting as a whole. Usually it’s best to just leave it as it is at some point and make another version if you are desperate to get it exactly right. I think I will paint Cillian again later, but from a different picture and angle. Even though I’m not perfectly content with the actual resemblance, I like the color combo of earthy tones combined with cool blue. Besides, we had a live model once during the course, and she came by to look at it and recognized him immediately.

In other news, for a while I’ve meant to move my pictures to some other gallery than Photobucket. It’s just so sucky. But moving the pictures and updating the links won’t be a walk in the park either. As for continuing my painting, I’m thinking of joining the Saturday group in the autumn term. I can no longer attend morning classes just in case I get work, and that unfortunately means I will have a different instructor.

The Saturday group is actually 5 hours for independent painters to come and make use of the facilities, without any guidance from an instructor. That would be fine, since painting without guidance is better than no painting at all. It’s the facilities that I most appreciated in addition to the instructions, since it is very complicated to set up my painting table at home. Plus, having a set time for painting never hurts.

I’m also considering making a website for advertising my translation and proofreading services. I have my own personal nerd to help me so basically I just need to come up with the content and design. I might not get customers anytime soon since I have so little on my CV as far as translations, but I might have a chance with low pay rates and with a convincing website.

Even small jobs would add to the groundwork for getting to my ultimate goal, i.e. some day successfully getting employed at a translation agency. It’s difficult to convince them that I could be a great translator when I have done so little of it officially, with proofs. I believe in my own abilities but I have little to show for it. But maybe one day.

Anyway. I got tagged by a Twitter knitter, Cheekytart (you can follow her here). So I’m basically obligated to blog, but I don’t feel forced at all. I needed something like this: My desire (more sharp than filed steel) did spur me forth,* when given a chance. The tag entails answering to a slew of questions about my personal life, which is fine.

1- What’s your staple meal (ie. what meal do you cook most often when you can’t be bothered to be adventurous) ?

I like to make a chicken wok with vegetables, basmati rice and various spices. I just throw in some courgettes, sweet pepper, black olives, mushrooms, sometimes carrot, and add different curry spices like turmeric, cumin, coriander, cardamom, ginger, chili, cinnamon and clove. You can make endless variations by wokking and you don’t have to consult any recipes, and I love that. It’s hard to go wrong because I’m not so choosy when it comes to tastes in food. The food has to be quite terrible for me not to eat it.

2- What do you want to be when you grow up?

I wonder how you know you are actually all grown up. Right now I would love to find work which involved using my language skills. Translation, proofreading, data entry, developing language-related apps, anything involving writing…

One of my ambitions is to write a dissertation, since I see it as something I have to do or I’ll always wonder what I could have accomplished with it, what I would find out if me and not anybody else looked at the data I am planning to use. I don’t see myself as a researcher for life because I don’t take criticism very well. I prefer an easier life to an ambitious one, since the former seems to entail far less agony and anguish.

Work is important to me because I haven’t had much of it so far in my life and to me it’s one way of defining myself as a person. I just want to feel useful and earn my living myself instead of living off everybody else.

3- What book are you reading at the moment (if any)

Larry Niven’s Ringworld. Someone over at the Mass Effect Social Forums said it was similar to the Mass Effect universe so I gave it a try. I’m almost finished and it is not a bad book. Before that, I read Allen Steele’s Coyote series, a gorgeous, realistic long series on colonizing an exoplanet, and Jack McDevitt‘s Ancient shores, a softer approach to scifi.

4- How do you relax?

I relax by exercising a lot and then eating something tasty with tea, watching tv and knitting, sometimes playing Mass Effect. Exercise is vital to my sanity and to my body’s functionality. Everything else is a plus.

5- What color are the interior walls of your home?

I live in a rental apartment with fugly old wallpapers, they are kind of white but not really, with weird yellowish and bluish stains and some texture. I try not to pay attention to it and I imagine it’s all white.

6- What is your guiltiest pleasure?

I don’t feel guilt over pleasures usually. Because I’m so worth it.

7- What time is bedtime and getting up time?

I like to tuck myself in around 11 pm so I have time to read a bit before sleep. Since I’m not working, I usually get up at 8.30 am unless, well, the circumstances are unusual.

8- How long do you spend reading blogs (per day or per week)?

I don’t read blogs on a daily basis, but I probably read one or two every week. I have spent so little time by the laptop lately, excepting Tweetdeck and email, that I simply haven’t had the time to read anything extra. Besides, my favorites have been taking a hiatus from blogging too, and nothing has been interesting enough to compel me into reading. I barely browse teh internets at all these days unless I’m using dictionaries or some other useful services.

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There, I’ve blogged! This just might have been the longest hiatus I’ve had with blogging so far. I just moved my blog to a new host, Downtownhost, which I so far recommend.

I would like to tag:

Ukkoite, because he probably isn’t man enough to blog about a blog meme, let alone one that asks very personal questions — really, he’s such a sissy he will not dare ;)

SetAsEssential, a Swedish lady whose portrait I’d like to paint one day as soon as she sends me a decent photo of herself. ;)

Baltarstar, because she’s such a sweetheart and writes so well.

*From Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act 3, Scene 3, line by Antonio (see here).

Hmm, maybe we could make it a tradition to exchange xmas presents in March or April, since it’s such a long time until my birthday and next Christmas… Anyway, in exchange for lol-slippers, Deniselle gave me fridge magnet poetry!

It’s a collection of words and punctuation marks in the form of fridge magnets that I can use to compose sentences, poetry in particular, by arranging them around on my fridge. I tried to group them according to word class, but soon discovered that my powers of classifying Finnish are less than perfect.

But let’s move on to the slippers! The pattern is from here, the Ravelry link is here. They are called Peter Pan’s slippers, but since mine always turn out too big, I call them lol-slippers.

Here are Deniselle’s slippers:

Deniselle really, really liked them! I guessed her taste in colors quite well – I don’t like blue much myself, but I don’t have a problem making something for someone else in colors that I don’t like. She thought they look absolutely hilarious with the pointy toes, which fits her endearingly silly personality very well indeed.

And here are mum’s slippers:

Mum commented that the pointy toes seem to want her to keep turning to the left all the time. They twist like that because I wasn’t careful enough with lining up the sides properly when I sewed them together.

Just like my dad’s slippers, these are huge. The cat in the photo is about the size of a real cat! The weird thing is, they are 12 rows and too big for mum, but at the same time the 10-row slipper she crocheted herself turned out too small for a friend of hers who has big feet for a woman. And when I asked Amoena about the size, she recalled she may have made only 8 rows in slippers she gave to a male friend of hers! Strange.

In any case, mum was thrilled with the colors and she decided she wants to try to make her own to give out as presents. She used to crochet, knit and sew her own clothes when she was young, because back then she was too poor to buy her clothes ready-made. She used to have a decent skill at it at least, so no reason why she couldn’t re-learn it.

So I urged her to buy  a crochet hook (her old ones were so short that they felt difficult to use) and some yarn, so I could teach her some basics before I have a 3 week break before my next Irish dance classes. She obeyed and I translated and printed out Finnish instructions for the slippers. As soon as she made her first double crochet, she immediately exclaimed “ooohh this is fun!”. Hooked from the first stitch! I had to draw a detailed series of pictures as a reminder of how to make the first slipknot and the first stitches in a magic ring, but otherwise she got the hang of the different stitches very quickly.

So the next time I’ll show her how to make hexagons (see on the sidebar in my projects – oh dear, I’ve completely neglected to blog about my hexagon blanket that I also gave to mum?!), since the slippers are quite fast to make and can get boring really quick. I can’t wait. It’s fun to spread the joy of handicraft.

Thanks to the wonderfully boring and never-ending holiday of Easter, I’ve really been hit by the boredom of my life lately.

Two of my usual workout sessions cancelled along with the weekly painting class, all because of some stupid Christian non-event which someone decided to stick in the place of some heathen event celebrating something slightly more sensible I’m sure.

I have been completely spoiled by the atelier environment in the painting classes. There’s so much room, so much light from a long wall of windows, big(gish) tables empty and waiting for you to lay your stuff on them and start painting. At home, I have a desk with a laptop on it, and plenty of other stuff that needs to be gotten rid of before I can start arranging my painting gear on the same space.

Or maybe I’ve just become even lazier than I used to be. I don’t need much money to get by, rent is ridiculous and Lidl provides ample yet affordable nourishment. Money’s guaranteed, jobs aren’t. I still haven’t applied for post-grad studies because I’m too lazy to go all the way to Kela to ask if I could still get their money if I’m a student, theoretically more productive than an unemployed version of me.

But I don’t wanna! I spent over 6 years studying and I’ve had enough. Granted, it wouldn’t technically be the same. I would only be doing whatever I want with my own research, but it’s not that simple. There’s so much stuff I don’t want to deal with right now. Like being confident about your topic and defending its purpose in conferences, or to others at the uni. Anyone else pretty much. I hate the competitive side. I’m not competitive with anyone else but myself.

I don’t know why I see the other postgrads as enemies. It’s some kind of a gut reaction, derived from some deep sense of self-worthlessness and inferiority. I find it very hard to push myself from this happy, if somewhat boring place where for the first time in a very long time I can actually say I am content, even happy. Every day is not a chore no more and I even look forward to living a long life. But there’s a line, I think, between being content and being complacent. One means wanting to keep living your life, the other means you think you deserve all and more than you’re getting.

Oh well. I don’t know why finishing my research plan seems like such an insurmountable obstacle. Perhaps it is because I would very much like to get accepted at Langnet with full funding for 4 years and they only take brilliant students and brilliant research plans. I know that my biggest hurdle is communicating my topic in plain English to people who don’t know anything about it. Much easier said than actually done. I wonder if popularizing your research isn’t the most challenging part of it. How to explain in lay terms something that doesn’t exist in lay terms?

Long shory stort, I’m trying to regain my focus by reading some relevant literature, trying to come up with ideas and hypotheses to look into. In other words, a nice way of spending some time sitting on the sofa and pretending to be useful.

P.S. I’m absolutely in love with this new WordPress bug which causes the save button not to save your post until you refresh your browser and lose whatever it didn’t save before. (EDIT: Apparently it works for the publish button as well! Super.)

Once upon a time, I felt inspired to paint Sofi Oksanen, the latest Finnish author to win the prestigious Finlandia Prize. Not only is she a goth chick, she also has interesting features. Her apparently nonchalant basic expression conceals an intelligent, idealistic and thoughtful woman. I haven’t read any of her books, but I plan to. My wild guess is they didn’t hand out that prize to her for nothing.

Long shory stort, she’s fully deserving of a portrait. One painted by me, now that’s a whole another matter. But doesn’t stop me from trying.

I knew from the start that it wasn’t going to end well. I was more anxious to paint anything, rather than Sofi and Sofi alone. I decided I’m too lazy to go for as perfect resemblance as I can, which basically means my whole heart wasn’t in it. Thusly, I started hating the painting long before I got to the point it is at now.

But since it’s Sofi, I must say there are some minor things I like about the painting. I like the scarlet around the eyes and eyebrows, and the salmon-y hue on the chin and the right temple contrasting against the white skin. I like scarlet and salmon a lot.

Other than that, this painting was a disappointing attempt. I shall paint it over some day and make another attempt, or it will haunt me forever with is accusing eyes.

Pichu, on the right, is definitely cuter than Chuckychu! I think I’m getting better at making amigurumis already, on my second try! I’m a little miffed that I can’t seem to find black safety eyes with light spots. There are hundreds of variations of eyes with a white, brown, green or any other color background, except black! And none with a light spot. And black eyes with light spots are essential to pokémons!

Oh well. I just have to be extra careful in cutting the eyes from felt. As with painting, the shape of the eye is a delicate matter. A tiny bit too small, big, oval, anything, and it won’t look quite right. Pikachu on the left there is a prime example.

Next up will be Eevee. Crocheting adorable creatures is a really nice change. They’re so fast to make and they’ll do a great job at establishing my reputation as a creep. Or more specifically, engraving that reputation on stone.

EDIT: I completely forgot to give props to the person whose pattern I used. It is of course Wolfdreamer, whose blog has many cute Pokemon patterns! I will probably make most of them before soon.

It feels like I worked on this beanie for an eternity, hence the ingenious name The Eternity Beanie (TEB for short). In actual fact, however, I started it before Christmas, went on until about 90% and then stopped. I got hit hard by the Terror of Finishing a Work and Realizing the Yarn Will Run Out (or TFWRYWRO for short; a devastating, mind-affecting condition documented in various medical publications).

So in the end, I probably worked on it only for a month at best, since I finished it in like two hours. I was ecstatic when I realized I won’t even run out of yarn – there is still at least one meter left. I’m truly pleased with this beanie, as I’ve always wanted this kind of slouchy beanie. I couldn’t find a good one in stores, so I had to make one.

The pattern is called the Sockhead Hat by Bohoknits. It only requires 100g of sock yarn, so I thought my two skeins of 50g Teetee Pallas yarn would be perfect. I fell in love with this beautiful variegated yarn and I think it suits the beanie perfectly. The pattern was very easy for a beginner knitter such as myself, so I strongly encourage any other beginners out there to start with this pattern. I only dropped one stitch and my decreases didn’t go all wonky. Yay me.

Without further ado, may I present my fairly recent painting:

I made this during the autumn semester of my painting course. I didn’t plan on it at all, it just happened while I was waiting for Amoena’s portrait to dry so I could finish it. With oil painting it is basically a must to have several projects underway at the same time, or you will have to take irritating breaks from painting altogether.

The male was supposed to look like a photographer whose work I’ve been admiring for a couple years now, but it doesn’t look like him at all, hence no reference picture. The female on the other hand was based on Noomi Rapace, the actress from the Swedish film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. She’s really stunning. I think I may have to paint her another time and make a real effort to try and make her look exactly right.

For once though, the characters were not the main point about the painting. I wanted to create something colorful very quickly, so I speed-painted it within an hour. But at the time, Tuomo the professional painter and painting instructor had just introduced a new painting technique to us novices. It’s called glaze, or lasuuri in Finnish. It was the perfect opportunity to try this new and slightly intimidating technique on a painting that I didn’t feel very passionate about.

A glaze in oil painting means that you choose a transparent kind of color that isn’t too rich in pigment – titanium white is a no-no, but lemon yellow or viridian green, much better. You thin the paint with water or turpentine, depending on whether you use water-soluble oils or not. I do, which means I can thin my paint with water without the hassle of turpentine. The paint should be very thin, almost like water colors.

Then you apply the extremely thin and flowing paint on the whole surface of the painting, preferably with a large brush so you can avoid too many brush marks. The point of a glaze is that you shouldn’t be able to notice it. It is simply a layer of color with very little pigment, but enough so that when light reflects from it, the other colors in the painting will get a different hue. You can add several layers of glaze as long as you let the layers dry in between so you can achieve a wonderful effect of depth to the painting.

There’s only one layer of glaze in my painting: I used ultramarine blue on the left just trying it out, but went with lemon yellow for the rest. The imprimatura color is a rosy pink, but it looks more earthy after applying the yellow glaze, and bluish purple on the left, aptly demonstrating the striking difference that a glaze can make. The two faces really seem to pop out from the background – they look like they are floating in the middle of nowhere. The effect is so cool that I am definitely using it more from now on, probably for every painting.

There is one difficulty with a glaze, however. If you do not know your color theory through and through, it can be difficult to predict how the hue of the background color will change from the glaze. I have spent a fair amount of time pondering on which color I should choose for the glaze with my latest painting in progress.

In the end, however, I have never felt like an unexpected color change actually does any harm to a painting. I have no preconceptions of what colors my painting should have or what color my subject-matter should be. I simply go with the flow, using colors that please my eye. That may sound like a cop out, but the truth is I can’t bring myself to be too determinate about colors. As long as the colors work well together within the painting itself, I don’t care if a face of a character ends up being green, pink or blue, or any other color for that matter.