HELMI-PIPPURI

Helmi-Pippuri -print

Helmi-Pippuri is one of my moms four cats. Helmi means pearl and Pippuri means pepper. Helmi got her extra nick name because of her funny pepper - beauty spot next to her nose. Helmi-Pippuri also has black pads when usually black/white cats have pink pads. Helmi is maybe not the prettiest cat and she looks a bit angry and sneaky but for sure she is the kindest and funniest and cutest of them all! My mom adopted her from the cat shelter about six years ago.

This is the printed sketch where I have used pictures from the internet and photographs of Helmi

My mom is a crazy cat lady just like me. In my family cats have always been equal members of the family and they are called and treated as kids. That means that Helmi amongst the others are my little sisters and brothers.

Painting is really slow but it is worth it. I could have done this much faster with Photoshop but the result would have been more flat

My mom turned 50 few months ago but I wasn´t able to make her gift in time. Now finally it´s almost ready. I made a cat-strawberry print using my little sister Helmi-Pippuri as an inspiration. Helmi is playing in the strawberry bushes and spending a lazy summer day laying under the shades.

A lot of candy is needed during the creative process!!!

I have worked with this print over one week and still it looks a bit that Helmi made it herself. It has a child -made feeling with bright primary colors.

I started working by gathering images from Helmi-Pippuri and strawberries. I composed the images into a repeat in Photosop and I printed it out. With graphite paper I copied the print to aquarelle paper.

Skype -hanging with Sasu while working. I think he might be asleep..

Four evenings I painted the leafs, strawberries and cats with acrylic colors. Making the print into a hand made sketch took me all together about 16h. After that I photographed it and moved it into the computer. I prefer using scanner to avoid shades but my scanner was too small for this 64cm x 53cm repeat. I erased the dirty looking back ground and fixed the repeat seams. That took me three more hours. The print still needs to be color separated if someone want´s to use it in rotation printing. However my meaning is to use it as a digi-print so color separation is not needed.

This is how the print looks on duvet covers

My plan is to find a company who can digi-print Helmi-Pippuri into a cotton fabric. Then I will sew duvet covers and pillow cases and my mum will have her final birthday present. Hopefully before she turns 60..

PHOENIX

A while ago there was a "scandal" in Finland. MTV3 is dubbing the classic Moomin animations again to update them to the modern language. People are against this because there is nothing wrong with the old ones. I agree. Following this conversation I also bumped into the three Moomin episodes that were never published in Finland. I watched them and I agree that it was good that they didn´t released those. Anyway I got really exited watching also the old Moomins. I have been sick again so I have had a lot of time to watch them. Moomins are my absolutely favorite animations of all times!

Moodboard

In the past I have watched all Moomin episodes over and over again so I know them thoroughly. We had all of them recorded on VHS:s when I was a kid. However one of the Moomin VHS stayed untouched. That one included episode about phoenix bird and somehow my brother was shit scared of the phoenix. Thats why the whole VHS was forbidden.

Now years after I watched it and it was good!
Moomins have always inspired me. Especially the animated Moomins. Inspired by the phoenix episode I made a Phoenix -print and it is dedicated to my little brother :)

Sketching process 

I started to sketch birds and by cutting and combining different bird parts I ended up to the final sketch. I draw it clear with black ink pen and I finished the print with Photoshop and Illustrator. I created the repeat in Illustrator with pattern swatch and I used hex by row tiling to build it.

More sketches

Final Phoenix

Colors are sunset pink and shades of gold and yellow.  To make a lively surface I have used water colors.

PARADISE

In the beginning of time there was just darkness. Then god created something furry and spotty and named it Leopard. God planted seeds and they grow into a jungle. Leopard was really lonely in the jungle so one day god decided to create a friend for him. While Leopard was sleeping god used leopards tail and transformed it into an other living creature; a Snake. Something went terribly wrong. The leopard woke up and freaked out because he had someone attached into his butt. The leopard and the snake didn´t like each other but they just had to get along for the rest of their lives. End of the story.

Here is how I created the Paradise in four days:

The animation is not the most professional one but it is my first! I tried to impress my dad who makes animations for living but in the end my dad had to combine the pictures into the animation. Thanks dad!!! My video making failed a bit because I couldn´t download the animation program to my computer.

First steps

This was my extended weekend project few weeks ago. My boyfriend was "thrilled" when he came to visit me from Finland and I was just glueing pieces of paper to the wall. It turned out just fine and I named him as a studio responsible. (I can make him feel important if I give him fancy nominations )  And he was a great help in taking pictures. Thanks my dear Sasu for your endless understanding and support 😘

Kitchen studio

I really like this kindergarden technique; cutting colorful papers and glueing them into different shapes. I also like the contrast of the childish technique with dark and a bit scary theme. I have had this idea of the dark jungle and a big cat a long time and I´m now so relieved when I was finally able to execute it out. The photographs don´t represent the real print. In reality the colors look more fresh and you probably can´t even notice the gold paper I have used? Nordic winter is not the best time to take pictures because there is so little daylight in a day. I´m so happy that the days are gradually turning more sunny and light.

Nice afternoon brake. A long sunny walk around the lake and hot chocolate on top of the rock with Sasu.

Paradise. This is the whole repeat. I made it in half drop.

  The Paradise was a lot of work but it was worth it. I´m super happy for the final result and I can now have a nice self made poster on my wall. I just need to find frames that are big enough.

BFF

My childhood friend Jemina was visiting me last weekend. We don´t see each other too often but every time we do it´s just like always; easy and fun. We did´n do much, but doing not much is the best. That´s true friendship when you can just be quiet and fart once in a while. We did do some shopping for Jemina´s future baby and we ate some healthy raw food because that´s Jemina´s passion. After that we compared Jemina´s baby stomach to mine food baby.

One food baby and one real baby

On sunday we visited art museum Artipelag, witch is not far from where I live. There was an exhibition about Lars Wallin´s fashion stories. He is a well known Swedish fashion designer who has tailored exclusive evening dresses for private clients into different evenings, galas, banquets and even to the stage of Royal Opera. The exhibition was a peek into Lars´ sketches, process, samples and inspiration. It was a perfect agenda for me and Jemina because our history together was the starting point into my fashion/textile career. When we were kids, maybe twelve years old we started our own business, dressmakers shop called Pakitus. Pakitus means sewing backward. I think the name symbolized that we were not that good dressmakers in the beginning. It was a game in the first place, but little by little we got better and we grew our business. We were running Pakitus through junior high school and high school so all together six years. We made all kind of custom made clothes in a small room in Jemina´s parents house and listened Electric Light Orchestra all day long while sewing. We also made three fashion shows that we presented at schools spring and christmas festivals.

Pakitus fashion in 2004

For a moment we were local celebrities at Nokia after this article

After high school Jemina started to study mathematics and I started my fashion studies. Pakitus times were over and ever since our lives has became quite different. Jemina became a math teacher, wife and soon mum and I´m eternal dreamer and wanderer. In spite of all we are still best friends. It meant a lot when Jemina now asked me to be her little boys godmother. I promised to teach him all the naughty and wicked stuff :D Saturday evening we memorized our happy childhood and Pakitus times by the fire and I sketched our childhood environment and Jemina´s parent´s house of that time. Our Pakitus was located to the second floor, left window. I finished the sketch into a print and I made a small print family around it. I placed the print to baby body´s because it was definitely our theme last weekend.

Ateljee Pakitus was in second floor, left window

Simple prints for baby clothes

Mini baby collection

THE WILD SWANS

It´s been quiet here because I have  been ill. Just the basic winter influenza that is one of the few reason that can force me to slow down..

The last project I made before I got ill was a book cover. I have made quite a few book covers for a small publishing company called Kvaliti. This one differs from previous ones because I was able to use allover print in it. What an exiting and surprising place to use all over print!

The wild swans

The book Nokkosmadonna is written by Kaija Lehmuskallio. She is a specialist of old Finnish mansions and she wrote this fictive story into a realistic and truth based milieu. This story tells the lifestyle in a fictive mansion called Gentgård during the last wars. It´s about the shaft between the rich mansion owner family and their subordinates who take care of the mansion.

Malmgård mansion in Pernaja, near where my mom lives. I like to go there and imagine the life on it´s glory days. Now days they have a small brewery and they make good beer.  Of course Malmgård´s estates were in my mind while making the book cover.

To make a book cover I must know the story and together with the publisher and writer discuss what are the key elements I will use in my illustrations. We found a fine connection from the story to an another story written by Hans Christian Andersen called The Wild Swans. Swans felt also a nice starting point because the book Nokkosmadonna is an honouring for Finland´s 100-year old history of independence. Yes, in Finland we have a big celebration year this year 2017!

I sketched the swans with a pencil and finished the print in Photoshop. You can find three different swans from the print but I think it looks that there is even more and that makes the repeat good.

Ready made swan sketches

The brown back ground color was selected amongst many color options. My first favorite was muddy blue with white swans, but it seamed too patriotic since the Finnish flag colors are blue and white. We also wanted to avoid feminine colors like shades of pink to not drive away all the male readers. The book name "Nokkosmadonna" can be interpret as a feminine book but actually the story is really good for anyone who is interested of Finland´s history and mansions daily life in it.

Together with the flying swan print I made a calming stripe to the inner covers. Making print families and couples it´s good to remember that bold prints need to have a calming friends by their side. The stripe is also symbolizing the wallpapers from the mansion. So when you open the book, you will enter to the imaginative but still so realistic world.

Wall paper stripe

Colors of Finland, blue and white

It would have been nice to have a picture of the real book but it is coming out in the end of March. I´ll promise to update it here when I receive it! Now you can pre order it from here

 https://www.booky.fi/tuote/nokkosmadonna/9789527202074

For the honour of 100-years independence of Finland I presented The wild swans -prints in blue and white color way as you maybe already noticed. Congrats my dear Finland!

CATS GONE WILD

Over a year ago I took part to a print/textile design competition arranged by Aalto University and H&M. The price was an internship in H&M. When I was listening the competition announcement and what the price was I decided that I wanna win. I wanted it and needed it. I never did exchange studies or internships abroad because I was afraid and scared. Now I finally felt that I was ready to go.
 The competition collection should include six all over prints and placed prints all together. Some of them was supposed to make into real fabrics by weaving, knitting or printing. These designs would be presented in a clothe collection for a certain H&M customer group we decided ourselves. I made my collection for women.

Cats gone wild

My collection got inspired surprisingly from cats. I started to think what cats do every night when we sleep? They definitely don´t sleep next to us like we might think. Maybe they sneak out and meet their cat friends in a magical garden? Maybe they transform into real tigers and leopards in moonlight? Maybe they became astronauts, who knows?

Drawing the Cats Gone Wild -print

In the end I decided to present five all over prints and one placed print in four outfits.
 The first outfit is a dress that has my star print Cats gone wild. I draw it with black ink pen and colored it with watercolors using Photoshop to combine the outline and colors. This large scale print is repeating only vertically because it is 150cm wide  (as wide as the fabric roll).
 Second outfit has a T-shirt and skirt. I screen printed this Moon cycle -print and used oily foil in it. Skirts print is called First cat on the moon. I used my mother´s cat`s paws as stamps when I sketched it.
Third outfit; jacket and dress are both woven fabrics. Jacket´s Mackerel tabby -print is weaved with soft and fluffy mohair yarns. Tapetum Lucidum means glowing eyes and the dress is covered with green cat eyes glowing in the darkness. Tapetum Lucidum -print is weaved with shiny lurex yarn and black wool.
 The last outfit has a Leafy photo print digiprinted on silk blouse.

Line up. Prints on clothes.

Moon cycle -placed print printed on H&M T-shirt

Cat labor

My dear TC2: Jacquard looms from Aalto university.

 I worked really hard to finnish my collection and I have to admit that after all the stress and anxiety I was really disappointed when I didn´t win the competition. Next day after the competition H&M arranged a recruiting event where I of course took part too. I presented all my artistic projects from my portfolio and I was a bit surprised when the interviewer was more interested of my commercial work. Even though my tactic was to make a commercial collection I think it was still too arty for H&M. You might think that making commercial designs is easy but actually it isn`t!
Few days after the interviews I got a mail from H&M that I was selected to do an internship on young girls department.

This is how my final competition work looked like with moodboards, color charts, prints and woven jacquards

 Taking part to all kind of competitions and collaborations has brought me the biggest advantages during my studies. I think that doing some real projects with real companies is the best way to learn the profession and get good contacts to your future career. Collaboration school courses are maybe not the most amusing, creative and fun ones (because they are real life), but for me they have been the most crucial. Take them seriously :)

Aalto University and H&M repeated the competition before Christmas (2016) and new interns are coming to H&M in February. That´s also nice for me to have some Finns here. Here is a link if you wanna read more (sorry, in Finish only) about this years competition and see the wining collections. http://www.aalto.fi/fi/current/news/2016-12-09-003/

Congratulations and welcome girls :)