Don't be afraid to fly

Still trying to listen the story behind this one, to figure out the proper name.

With trembling hands

Drawing some ornaments for a poster. The inks suck, my hands are trembling like hell... have to fix so many lines afterwards. Come on hands, work with me a bit!

It's getting colder

  


"first snow" 


First snow rained a couple of days ago. I thought it would be appropriate to draw this picture to properly welcome the coldest of seasons.

Work in progress

Maybe this green tea I've been drinking lately isn't so good for me. It makes me draw strange pictures. This one isn't finished though, still needs something, something psychedelic...

The trees are watching you

Should get some sleep but there's so many open eyes to draw...

Carnoustie Effect

Cover art for Carnoustie Effect demo CD. I really like how this turned out, digipaks are always so much nicer than those ugly jewel cases.

Fatal Error

Cover art for Fatal Error demo CD

Come clarity

4 am, after several cups of tea and hours of drawing, things are starting to make sense once again. Why this clarity only comes at nights and why everything is so confusing in the daylight?

By autumn she was gone

"casualties of a fleeting summer"

Autumn songs

Hand made cd sleeve for a friend.

waves

Some work in progress

The Berlin exhibition and trip was just great, met some great people who I already miss and hope to see again. Lots of drawing to do now that I'm home but my mind is still in Berlin...

Intersection

I'm heading to Berlin this week, to take part in an exhibition called "Intersection" at the Freies Museum.
A while ago, the collaboration between Martin Bircher, Jonne Pitkänen and me gave birth to an interactive sound and video installation, "fogli di plastica a bolle d'aria".
First we had it here in Kouvola, in the Kouta Gallery at the Kouvola Art Museum, and now we are dragging it to Berlin. And I'm playing some noise/ambient music with Jonne at the opening of "Intersection".

Playing with the "fogli..."


I've been also drawing a lot, but finishing less. After the Berlin I'm going to isolate myself for a couple of months and finish every piece I've started to draw since the beginning of summer.

It will be here soon

"Autumn Spirit II"


- You see me... You see me, there's no point looking away.
- Yes, yes I see you. But you're not due yet. It's not autumn, not just yet. Have you looked at the trees, the leaves are still green.
- But still you see me, though it's not the time. Have you let go of my gifts already?
- Have I let go? I have nothing. Nothing for you to take. Unless you crave emptiness? Or the feeling of loneliness, the feeling of wanting to lay down, wanting to be forgotten. You want those? I am as you left me.
- No, it is not what I want
- Then what? Why have you come?
- I already said why I have come. And you're wrong. You are not empty. Far from it. You feel emptiness, but to be empty... no, you are not empty. The longing, the mourning, the pain inside you, they cannot empty you, they cannot drain the things that fill you. And you know that. You say you have nothing, yet you feel so much. That is not nothing.
- So... you're here to drain me then?
- No, why I'd do that? To take away the things that give you reason? The only things that makes sense, that makes you open your eyes in the morning. There wouldn't be anything left after that, nothing to feed upon, nothing to grow if I'd take away all those things. I would starve. And so would you. We'd both die. That is not my purpose, to end existence.
- Then what, you want my ability to feel? I already gave up that once, you're too late.
- Yes, that you did, but you got it back. You don't give up anything you don't want to give up. There's always the choice and the choice is always yours, never mine. I have never taken anything from you by force, I have never collected anything that didn't already have the stench of death in them. I'm the collector, I take only dead bodies, I'm not the one killing them. I'm not the one sitting amid them, trying to hold on to something rotten, that is already gone.
- Fuck you and fuck off, I'm tired of listening to you.
- Yes, I'll go, it was not my choosing to come here at this time in the first place. It was your growing need to dispose something, the craving to let go. You take your time and think what it is you need to let go this time. But now, right now it is not the right time. Not just yet...

In a dark place

Yesterday I had this dream that a good friend of mine was dead. I was sad and crying, not wanting to believe that she was really gone. But then I was talking with her parents, and they told me that although she was dead, somehow her spirit or ghost was still present, that you could feel her presence in this cave in a nearby forest. So I ran to look for the cave and found it in a grassy clearing. It was a cave in the ground, almost a straight hole down and I couldn't see the bottom, it was pitch-black. I started to climb down and immediately I could feel the presence of my friend, growing stronger the further I went down. But the cave was very dark, and there was water and I knew it was deep, bottomless. I also knew that she was down there, in the blackness, somewhere. I tried to move, to force myself to go down there but I couldn't. I was scared of the water, knowing I would drown if I went any further. So after awhile I climbed out of the cave, crying all the way up. And I hated myself for being too damn afraid to dive into the black water and find her.

So when I woke up, I started to draw this diver, someone braver than me, someone who can find her.

And I'm just wondering where you are when I can no longer keep everything hidden inside?

"These things can no longer remain hidden inside"


About spacesuits. The thing that intrigues me in them is that the suit protects you against a hostile environment, that will kill you if faced unprotected. Inside the suit, there's a small closed and sterile space, in which you can breath, where you are safe but also isolated from the outside world and moving is uncomfortable and limited. So there's many reasons why they sit well for my purposes.

I don't wanna explode in fear

Work in progress, a sketch of a new astronaut and some inks on a drawing I did earlier. There's something going on with these spacesuits/astronauts, more of them is lining up in my head...

Songs For The Living

A skeleton illustration for Songs For The Living, which is a community art project founded here in Kouvola, open for everyone to join. Check out what it's all about and participate with your song: www.songsfortheliving.com

Getting there, slowly but surely

Finally got the time to start inking this drawing I did sometime last autumn. It's not very unusual that some of the things I draw can end up waiting more than six months to be finished. Actually the best part is when going through my papers and sketches I find something that I already had forgot that I had done. It's kind of the same feeling you get when you find some cash from your pocket you don't remember putting there. It doesn't matter it's yours to begin with, finding something forgotten is like it was free or extra.

Junk and collages

A pile of junk which I hauled today from the forest? Oh no, far from it. It's crafting materials for collages. It will all turn into something like this:






















Above is one of three collages I made last year for a group exhibition. Making the collages was so much fun and inspiring that I thought I'd give it another go. I really like the process how the collage comes together. When I'm drawing things, I first see the image in my head and then I create every detail, I can shape everything just like I want them to be. But with collages it goes differently. I wander around looking for interesting things, stones, pieces of wood, rusted metal, any object that will speak to me in a certain way. Somewhere in these objects is a story, which I have to find and put together, and I can only shape things to a certain point. I have to work with the shapes the objects have, I cannot make them to be anything I want like when I'm drawing. So it's a nice change to how I usually work.

Work in progress

One of today's drawings: rocks and roots and astronauts.






















I have to say it feels damn good to be drawing again, I'm enjoying every line. Lots of new stuff coming up, if I only could concentrate a bit more, I'm on that stage where I'm jumping back and forth between drawings all the time, starting a new one and after fifteen minutes going back to what I was drawing before that and so on.

Trying to remember how to hold a pencil

Ok, here we go. It's been ages since I last drew anything, let's see if I still remember how this goes.




















detail / pencil sketch

The life after deadlines

Yes, I'm still alive in case you were wondering. This far the whole year has just been too full of commissioned jobs and other projects so I haven't got much time to do draw anything for myself and this blog has suffered from a deathlike silence. Lots of great things has happened in a short time, yesterday I made my first musical performance on an open air stage, being a part of an experimental electronic music and video art performance named Boys on Toys: The Language of Electric Waste. The show was a part of Kymenlaakso 2011 happening at Turku. I hope to get some video from the show soon.

I feel kind of exhausted at the moment, but the things that have kept me busy for so long are now finished and the pages on my calender are almost empty for the coming weeks and even beyond that. I had almost forgot how it feels not having a deadline after deadline lurking in every spread of my calender. So after some holiday time, I'm going to concentrate on doing my own art projects at least for a year, that means a lot of drawing amongst other things. Also, this blog will wake up from its slumber.

Dark River

Illustration for a book cover from last year.

Bunny Patrol

This came out today, Tähtivaeltaja issue 4/2010, looks great. There's also copies of the same issue with different cover illustration, so don't be surprised if the cover of your copy is something else.






















"Bunny Patrol"

Multiplayer at Gallery 1988

My submission for the Multiplayer group show at Gallery1988 Venice.
Check out Gallery1988 website for all the artwork and to buy the prints. I guess the opening was quite a success.

Some pictures from the opening on Kevin Tong Illustration Facebook page




















"Which Way To Dr. Wily?"
(Signed and numbered edition of 40)

With stars falling above us, I could have stayed there forever with you

First drawing for this year so let's begin with something positive for a change. A memory of happiness:




















"3 am (with stars falling above us, I could have stayed there forever with you)"