Crows

This one was started last summer, when Maestro gave me the ring with a silver crow skull. I started drawing it immediately, but then stopped, all of a sudden, when two-thirds of the drawing were finished. I finally completed it this Sunday.

Metropolis

I've finished the "steampunk" mask today, realizing in the process that it is not steampunk at all.

It's got all kinds of gears and details on it, but I feel it's not organized enough for steampunk, but rather an abstract piece.

There are parts of an old Soviet alarm clock and some things taken from computer motherboards (generously donated by Maestro).

The turquoise was added at the last moment. I never intended to have it here, but the mask somehow seemed incomplete without this last touch. I'm addicted to turquoise :)

The name also came all of a sudden - when I looked at the finished piece I just realized it reminded me of the robot from "Metropolis". Metropolis it is, then.

A piece of breakfast

I seem not to be able to eat fruit and vegetables without photographing them first :)

And Happy Ostara, everyone!

Playing with Fire

Yesterday, we had the most wonderful evening, with a creative outburst I haven't experienced for several months (and i've missed the feeling too). My best friend, a radiant, sunny person with wild curly hair, eyes of the colour of chocolate and a stock of energy that could supply a power plant for a couple of years, got her first serious photo camera. Naturally, we celebrated the purchase at our place with a lot of coffee, beer, and an orange tart. Naturally, we tried the new camera, and Maestro delivered a brief lecture about the basic setting and principles, and we played with both cameras... and eventually came up with this:

The hands are painted with fluorescent paint and I set a really small aperture size. There are two people on the picture.

There is only one person on this one.

We also played with candles, and the plan is to rpeat the session with LEDs. 

Again, two people here.

Maestro took a couple of photos of us gossiping over coffee. I love the way my friend's face is lit here, as if on a Renaissance portrait. 

I really loved working with fluorescent, and intend to do more pictures some time soon. 

The Elements

Yesterday we went to the Keila-Joa waterfall. The sky frowned at us and dusted the streets with some snow, but I was mercilessly dragged out of bed, stuffed into the car and taken to what turned out to be one of the most picturesque, tiresome and enjoyable walks I've had so far this year.

The river is still firmly sealed with ice

It was so nice to see the thick green moss after several months of black-white-grey town streets; it's resilient, and filled with moist, and smells deliciously. All throughout our walk, I kept brushing my face against twigs and fir pars, smelling things, delighted by the fresh and raw aromas.

Somewhere the ice is already broken, and the black icy water rushes inside the melting framework. 

The stream comes out of the pitch-black caves crafting the delicate lacy patterns on the ice walls, and disappears into the sinister black abyss, which looks so deep, and mysterious, and fascinatingly frightnig. It seems to enter some dark cavernous underworld instead of continuing its way right under our feet.

The waterfall itself is frozen, a thick wall of fantastically shaped ice stands still where the water used to dash.

 The ice caves look as if they were entrances to some other place, the Snow Queen's realm, the vast snowclad lands of Pohjola. 

But the ice is neither dead, nor motionless. If one puts the ear against this wall, behind it the powerful drone of the falling water can be heard.

The streams of water can be seen inside the deep cracks. 

Behind the still, rigid exterior there's the fierce throbbing of life.

Soon, the stone will be erupting water again. 

We've touched all four elements that day: exposed our smiling faces to the wind, bathed our fingers in the numbingly cold water, walked the thawing earth and warmed ourselves in front of the fire at a quaint tavern where we drank steaming coffee and mulled wine. 

To get to that tree, we had to walk hip-deep in the snow.

The first colors of spring - lush moss on a tree stump.

And the young moon smiled at us from among the gnarled branches. 

Paprika... Again

Now here is the second drawing of the same paprika piece. Unfortunately, it had not survived to model for the third one, because it withered fast and I was compelled to eat it. Then again, maybe it's about time to let go of the groceries :)

Maestro (my loved one, sculptor and mask-maker) said there was something hobbytish in it (a base revenge for commenting his last candlestick as : "Whoa, you're going elvish!"). I guess, that's really the case. I was feeling a bit disturbed when I was drawing this, so this is the result of my yearning for comfort and cosiness. 

What do they put in vegetables these days!

The baby paprika I discovered inside a real one a couple of days ago had given me some ideas about what else may be found in there.
Perhaps, this?

I don't have a normally working scanner currently, so I just had to settle for the photographs.

Such a warm and cosy place to sleep, isn't it? Only a little bit damp, herhaps :)

I haven't been getting enough sleep recently, so this is the expression of my most cherished dream at the moment - just sleep for as long as I want.

Made a mess in the process.

The cats were helping, of course. 

Practically guided me through the whole process.

Very helpful indeed. 

I've got another picture in the process, but that one will have to wait a little bit. 

Sleeeeep....

I am currently sitting at a computer class at our school, being taught how to create online lessons for my pupils. The problem is, most of my colleagues in the group are considerably older than me and have to face far more difficulties handling the computer.
It is OK, of course, for somebody not to know something, or for somebody to work at a slower pace... But - god, I am soooo bored! I was just surfing the Web, doing nothing in particular, and found this piece of poetry of mine which I put together in September, on a sunny, dewy autumn morning while walking to school. It is about some of my earliest childhood memories, when father used to take me for a walk to a small forest (which is, actually, a park, but was a huge mysterious forest back then) at the seaside.

***

It is, indeed, the very keenest pleasure
to smell the morning grasses damp with rain,
with sparkling drops luxurious as summer
herself, in rich green gowns embroidered and perfumed
with lilac, nettles and the yellow flowers
which grew about the short roads of my childhood.

In clumps they grew, and smelled of bitter honey,
the yellow thicket buzzing with the bees
below the pines which oozed the amber resin
with sea as their eternal salty background.
The name of these I constantly forgot,
but smell endured, as among the curl'd roots
I recognized the duck, the ram, the monkey,
the hound with muzzle elegant, and more,
and numerous were beasts, and birds, and dragons,
but these four I remember as if now
I was still standing on the road with pebbles
and stones with mica sparkling at my feet.
These four, my favourites, I see them still from here,
and recognize them without straining eyes,
but with the memory of heart and clear vision
of child, still lingering among the pines.

Fire!

You never know when it hits you.
All I did was cut some paprika to cook with the chicken. Never even planned to touch the camera today.
When, all of a sudden, this drop-dead-gorgeous thing revealed itself under my fingers, and I nearly burned the vegetables because I was so preoccupied taking pictures of it.

Isn't it in a way touching, the tiny pods, plump and glossy, concealed safely inside the meaty ripe one? 

The curves are funny, and complete a neat composition together with the thick, rich-green stem. 

And the colors fascinate me. We don't get much color here this time of year, and suddenly I find these beautiful fiery reds, and juicy greens, and radiant yellows bursting right out of my plate. 

The background is a bowl of chopped tomatoes, onions, paprika and garlic sprinkled with some rosemary. 

 I wish I could copy this in clay and hang them all around the kitchen

And, Of course, the cat would not stay away.