Maarit K illustration

New Blog

2010-06-28T11:52:00.000-07:00

From now on all the jewellery talk will be in my new blog Nomoi Koru (that's not a promise by the way, I may smuggle some occasional new product pictures here too). You might want to bookmark the address, the url is a bit long (nomoikorushop.blogspot.com). I wanted the url nomoikoru.blogspot.com, and I actually registered it with another e-mail address, but then I noticed it doesn't show in my current profile (duh), and deleted it. Turns out that nobody can ever use that address again, even if the account has been deleted. Didn't see that coming, but at the moment I'm a bit too content and busy to start asking questions like "where's the justice" and such! I'm rolling with it.

By the way I tweaked the appearance of this blog a bit, do you like it?

Nomoi Koru

2010-06-24T13:20:00.000-07:00

I'm in the process of opening up a new shop for jewellery on Etsy. I'm really excited about it, I've been ordering supplies and designing new pieces for about a month now! Here's a sneak peek of what's coming! You get a pretty good idea of the colours that I'm using; mainly black, white, silver and brass (both bright and with slight and heavy patina), a splotch of colour here and there.

Main materials are brass and glass. Not the most precious of materials, but honest, reliable, good ol' brass n' glass! They look great, and don't cost a fortune, which is important, because I wanted to keep the prices reasonable. I don't want to make things that you have to save up for a year to be able to afford, I don't see the point in that. The supplies I use are partly vintage and partly contemporary.

Here's a link to the shop: Nomoi Koru. Nothing there yet, but I will be listing some pieces next week, and more when I get the rest of my supplies!

Brand new totes

2010-04-09T04:43:00.001-07:00

Here it is! I got the pandas on the tote, finally. I listed this one on Etsy (here), more colours are coming.
edit:
some new colours

Illustration Friday - Expired

2010-03-23T16:20:00.000-07:00

These pandas just heard that the application date for X-factor expired. They would have had so much to give.

I'm probably going to print this on tote bags (and maybe t-shirts) for my shop, once I get the screen ready!

Drama

2010-03-02T15:38:00.000-08:00

I have had difficulties of supernatural proportions in the past weeks. My iMac died on me (slowly and painfully), I could not find a good finish for my wooden discs, and I had major problems with the inks I'm using. And my bank's internet interface is not working at all. It doesn't really seem like that much, but it all piled up on me, it felt like everything possible was going wrong! It's better now, my computer's working again, I found the finish I was looking for (a slightly tinted wood wax), and changed ink supplier. Well the bank's website is still a lemon, but I manage with it! I can finally focus on something else.

Speaking of which, I have some new products in my shop! Let me present to you, the pendant. I make holes in the wooden discs with my new drill (it's a toy but it does the job), and tie a waxed cotton cord in them and there it is! The knots are tied so that the length of the cord is adjustable, very nifty! Again, I will be taking pictures with real people in them soon, very soon.

Illustration Friday - Muddy

2010-02-11T16:38:00.001-08:00

A horsie/prince with muddy hoofs.

Internet fame

2010-02-07T14:46:00.000-08:00

One of my brooches was featured in a blog called johnny&stacie (that's where the image is from). I just spent a half an hour there, lots of beautiful photographs and great Etsy finds! It made me realize that I have to stop taking crappy photos.

Illustration Friday - Focused

2010-02-04T17:55:00.001-08:00

Just a quick sketch this time.

Treason & plot

2010-02-03T10:08:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time coming, but I can finally present you - le tote! The design is about royalty, treason, beheadings and such.

I've been experimenting on different colour combinations, and I will be selling this one and others on Etsy for a reduced price. I sincerely apologize for the pictures again, they're crappy, I know! The colours in the second bag are roughly the same as in the picture above, and the orange-y red in the first bag is the same as the red in the second bag. The other colour is brownish grey.

Waiting and taxes

2010-01-29T12:32:00.000-08:00

It has been a really stagnant and boring week. I've been paying bills and dealing with tax- and insurance -related stuff, among other boring and soulsucking things. I don't want to be a stereotype, but I hate dealing with all kinds of papers and forms! With a passion. It can ruin the whole day for me.

On a happier note, I printed out some calling cards/thank you notes/tags yesterday on very nice paper, I really like the way they turned out. Pay no attention to the weird hue in the picture by the way, it's almost impossible (and a bit stupid) to photograph mostly white objects on a white background.

I also experimented with a new colour on the brooches. A gorgeous yellow, I love that colour! I tried it on the wood surface, but it's too light to show (it's not as opaque as the white I use). So I printed on some discs that I've painted white earlier, that worked fine. The brooch in the picture is listed here. I want to do some more experimenting, at least with royal blue and some shade of green maybe (greens are hard though), but I'm running out of wood discs! I've ordered some more, but it'll take a while before I get them. Waiting is another favorite of mine.

Illustration Friday - Clumsy

2010-01-25T02:50:00.000-08:00

Our heroine is very eager and a little short sighted (and a bit of a fashion victim too). She did kill the beast but there were a few innocent casualties as well. Careful with that sword.

I have a brand new Etsy shop Nomoi, go visit! And while you're there, check out burrosaurus's shop as well, beautiful art prints in there.

Rants and updates

2010-01-22T13:05:00.000-08:00

I've been looking for the perfect t-shirts for my prints for a long time. They would have to be good looking, relatively cheap (I'm not unrealistic though), and preferably ethical and ecological. I got a packet of samples from Continental Clothing today, and I have to say that their bamboo shirts are pretty great but a bit out of my price range for now. I also got a sample of their EarthPositive t-shirt, and it would be just what I'm looking for, if the sizes weren't so tiny! Or am I just fatter than I thought (because that is a serious possibility)? I'll have to find a solution to this soon, maybe I'll just order bigger sizes or go for the pricier shirts (and order less).

I've also been planning for an actual photo shoot with real people wearing my brooches (and tote bags and t-shirts). My sister has graciously promised to model for me, and I've already had some ideas for it. The lighting is something I haven't figured out yet, you can't really use natural lighting in these latitudes this time of year. There could be a couple of hours during the day when you could get some decent photographs, but it's way too cold for it. Anyway, you'll hear about it soon enough.

Then happier news: knottednest from Etsy chose one of my brooches to her Treasury (they're sort of showcases of products curated by Etsy members)! Go visit her shop, it's full of lovely things.

Nicaragua

2010-01-22T08:26:00.000-08:00

My younger brother, his girlfriend and their friend have been living in Leon, Nicaragua since last Fall. They're there as exchange students, and they also have a blog. All of them are really good writers, so it's a joy to read about what they've been up to. Most of the text is in Finnish spiced up with a few Spanish phrases (sorry non-Finnish speakers), but the photos are great, too! I miss them a lot, but I'll see them again in a few months.

The picture is of a postcard I got from them a few weeks ago, it's the Leon University.

Busy

2010-01-19T14:47:00.000-08:00

I have been very busy for the past few weeks, it's been fun though. There are tons of things to get done, one is the visual look of the business, which I've been working on for a while. This is what I've done with the calling cards so far:

I'm not really sure about the font and a couple of other details, but I think it's going to look somewhat like that. You can see the logo there, too. I had a pretty clear picture in my head of what the logo should look like very quickly after I decided on the name (which wasn't that painless of a process), and I'm pretty satisfied with it. I might tweak the n a bit.

Also, I tried printing the brooches with white ink, and they came out pretty fancy, if I say so myself (which you already know if you've been to my shop lately)! I treated them with wood oil and it really makes the contrast better. See:

Ta-Dah!

2010-01-17T05:59:00.000-08:00

You've been hearing nothing but crickets here for the past six months, and I do have an excuse for some of that time, though not all of it. I've been planning to start my own business for a while now, and I've been seriously preparing for it for months. I took a business class last year, it lasted for two months, and it was very useful (though tiring, I'm getting sleep deprived just thinking about it). Now I feel I'm as ready as I'll ever be! My business was registered 4th January 2010. It's called Nomoi, and I now have an Etsy shop by the same name. Go visit!

I've listed some screenprinted wooden brooches, and there will be tote bags and t-shirts and other stuff soon! I'm really excited, and that's an understatement.

I promise to update my blog more often. Again. This time I really really mean it.

Lion print

2009-07-23T12:20:00.001-07:00

I finally got the lion screen ready (after a few unfortunate attempts)! Here are the printing results:

I made one with two shades of green and one green-black (I only have two colours, guess what they are..). I think the exposure time was too short this time, the face is a little smudgy and the details are lost a bit. Here's the original image (made with photoshop):

Even though the screen is clearly not perfect, I'm probably leaving it alone and moving on to new things. There's so much I want to do! I have to buy new screens.

IF - Hollow

2009-07-16T02:29:00.001-07:00

I started this probably about six months ago, I painted the hair and left it like that for a long time. I finished it yesterday. I'm relatively happy with it, I'm still having trouble with backgrounds, but it's getting better.

Screenprinting II

2009-07-15T05:06:00.000-07:00

Last week I was up north at my parents' house, and I tried to make a better screen. This time I exposed it for 30 minutes (as opposed to the 35 minutes I did last time), and the results were hugely different!

The quality of the picture depends a lot on your printing technique (I noticed that a window cleaner does not make for a very good squeeguee, I ended up using a piece of cardboard instead, works fine). I think the second girl from the left came out ok.

Next I'm planning on making a two-colour screen print of the fire spitting lion a few posts back. I tried to make the screens this morning, but they didn't come out very good, I'm trying again tomorrow. I'll post the results as soon as I get something printed! It's pretty much trial and error at this point and I don't really know what I'm doing most of the time, but it's so much fun!

Screenprinting I

2009-07-15T03:52:00.000-07:00

I did my first experiments on screenprinting a couple of weeks ago at my boyfriend's family's house. I lost my faith several times already during the preparational stage, (it's almost impossible to find transparencies that you don't have to buy a hundred at a time for example, and everything else seemed to go wrong that day also). So logically, I threw myself on the floor and refused to do anything (not a very constructive way to deal with hardships I know), until my boyfriend scraped me off it and we got everything ready eventually. He's solely responsible for anything getting done that day!

We printed some transparencies in the library (you can buy them one at a time and they're really cheap there, I wish I had known that before!) I taped two transparecies together to make sure the drawing was black enough and no light would pass through.

Then we bought some 300W halogen lamps from the hardware store (7 euros a piece, we went for the cheapest ones), and built a sort of a scaffold for them (mostly my boyfriend's stepfather and his father did). It's probably not the most professional high end lighting system that you can have for screenprinting, but it's more that enough for me at this stage. I'm thrilled for it! My original plan was to use the sun as a light source, but after a few cloudy days, I decided to go for something a bit more stable for these latitudes.

If you want me to bore you with the details of the process, let me know, I'll be happy to do it! For now, here are some pictures of it:

When I got home and tried to print with the screen, the results were not that great:

The picture is smudgy and all the lines are not visible. I had no idea what went wrong but I suspected it had something to do with the light exposure time.

IF - Drifting

2009-06-24T16:30:00.001-07:00

A sketch I made today. I sort of like it, I might make a painting of it or something. I haven't painted in ages.

Screen printing novise

2009-06-24T04:09:00.000-07:00

I'm seriously thinking about taking up screen printing! I've been fascinated with the idea of it for a while, but now I got the verve to go and buy some screen printing equipment. I've never done it, never even seen anyone do it, but I've read about it a lot (not the same thing I know!). I'm going to be doing some experimenting next weekend. I'm using the sun as a light source, so there are a lot of possibilities for failure, but I'm insanely excited about it! I'll be posting the results next week.

Here's the equipment I got. I haven't got a squeeguee yet, but I've been told that you can use the one that's used for window cleaning. I'm going to go buy one today.

Two johns and a clown

2009-06-24T03:34:00.000-07:00

I spent last weekend with my family up north. It was the midsommer's fest called Juhannus, it's a really big holiday in Finland. They do have it in Sweden also but I think it's a slightly more big of a deal in Finland. It takes place approximately during summer solstice, and it was originally a pagan holiday, now it's officially a celebration in the memory of John the Baptist, but a few people even know that. In practice, it has nothing to do with John the Baptist whatsoever. Basically in a nutshell it involves eating, going to the sauna, getting drunk, going to the dance, burning up huge piles of scrap wood and other burnable things (in a kokko), and then going swimming or rowing in a lake drunk as a skunk. Not necessarily in that order. A lot of people drown during juhannus, it's a sort of a morbid tradition. But generally it's all good fun, people get out of the cities and see their family and friends. We had a fun and non-dramatic juhannus; I just ate my weight in food and now I'm trying to walk it off.

Anyway, back at my parents I discovered that the lion share of artistic abilities in my family seem to have gone to my little brother. I found this incredible sculpture (it's a candle holder) of what seems to be a clown. I think it's amazing. I could never make something that amazing ever! He told me that our mother "encouraged" him to go to an art class in the evening for a while when he was about 10, and he was kind of frustrated about it. At least he was able to express himself. My boyfried said it looks like John Wayne Gacy, and I can't really disagree much. What do you think?

IF - Unfold

2009-06-16T03:54:00.000-07:00

Elsie got herself in a bit of a knot before she started to unfold.

IF - Craving

2009-06-09T07:49:00.001-07:00

I don't know whether she's getting ready to really harm someone or just trying to poke her own eyes out. All in all - she craves revenge.

Dragon fruit

2009-06-03T11:03:00.000-07:00

I really like this one! I love the looks of dragon fruit, but I've never tasted one. I hope it doesn't taste like crap.

Black&white:

Storm, mountain

2009-06-02T08:37:00.001-07:00

Two more patterns. I'm really satisfied with the mountain, it's kind of a harlequin-pattern with a twist.

Harpys

2009-06-01T14:55:00.000-07:00

I've learned to do repeating patterns recently, and I've been experimenting with it quite a lot. I've had some hits and a lot of misses, but it's all been fun and very therapeutic actually (it's a great cure for a minor illustrator's block).

There's more where this is coming from, I'll be posting again tomorrow! This one is a bit more complex and illustrative than the rest. I like both of the colour combinations, though I'm slightly drawn to the blue-green. But that might change tomorrow.