I feel the spring on my skin

I'm so terribly sorry!! Sometimes I remember this blog for a moment and then forget it right away. There's no way I could explain this completely. I'm somehow really busy these days. I spend less time at home and more time in Helsinki. Okay, I'll tell my reason number one. Yes. My boyfriend.

I've been really lazy with what comes to art lately, except with photography, but I've started to feel like painting again, so maybe when it gets warmer, I'll take my oil colours, brushes and canvases and go outside ♥
Mirva was right, we do still have snow in here. BUT all the streets in Helsinki are dry already, and outside our school there's plenty of grass showing! I guess I said before that I love winter. Now it seems like I've finally found out what I really love. It's the cycle of the seasons. When it snows for the first time in the beginning of winter, I burst into a big smile, but now I've noticed the same effect when I've walked outside my jacket open, or without a jacket like today, or when I see grass somewhere it couldn't have been seen before, or when the birds sing or the sun shines, or when I tasted ice cream for the first time this year, Ben & Jerry's, outside, I almost started screaming and hugged my friend Julia really hard!
I guess I should carry my camera with me to school again some day to get some pictures of the spring in Helsinki. Maybe I'll do that. Maybe.

Okay so now it looks like it's my time to go get some sleep. Hope I'll remember to post something more soon, Mirva, try to wake me up by posting yourself :D:DD

Damn, I was gonna say goodbye by "pus" but then realised that I should probably translate it and then the atmosphere would be completely different if I'd say in English "kisses". It somehow gives me such a teenage feeling, that I'll just leave it :D

Pus!
Ansku

The Path of Wind

I have no idea what has happened to Ansku, but I have a good reason for this late post; it's spring.

This photo was taken on Valentine's day. Me and Anja were having a lovely short holiday in Stratford, and while stopped playing turists we took a break, kicked off our shoes and enjoyed the wonderful feeling of leisure.

As you can see, this picture (taken few weeks ago) shows that the weather is getting warmer and warmer. That's obviesly fantastic, but weird. If I have understood right you still have snow in Finland, don't you? I can't understand why I even bothered to buy a new winter coat for this year - the temperature went under zero only twice!

My Final Major project is comic up and I have to do some research (read: watch films) for it. Ihave few books and couple of DVD's I need to check: The Lord of the Flies (William Golding), Prinsessa Madeleine (Laura Ala [trans. Princess Madeleine]), Platoon, The Silence of the Lambs, The Deerhunter and Howl's Moving Castle. Let's see if I find time to write about these a bit more.

Another thing I think I will return to is turning books into films. Gosh, I watched the new Narnia this one day... Uhhhh how can they have lost all the magic that was in the books? Some of these new films are just disgusting.

So this was a bit of an apologise post. I will write more about these things I mentioned before, but at the moment I'm just gonna take my sunglasses and go out to breath some warm wind the spring has brought to British Isles.

_______
Mirva

I'm holding out for a hero

Now excuse me, the last weeks of my life have been such a mayhem - I was planning to post a new text last weekend, but after all I just couldn't find time to do that. But that's ok, we all love to read long messy posts, don't we?

This is "the manga page" I was talking about last time. I've coloured it with my grey Promarkers (♥) and added the dialogue. Don't put this into Google translater, my Chinese is not that good.
So our assignment was to buy a newspaper and do something with it. I'm not specificly proud of the way I used the actual newspaper, but that wasn't the point of this work anyway. I used the newspaper more as an inspiration than really did anything with it. But because I have this thing called conscience I felt that I had to stick those few ugly advertisements into the pic on the right hand side.

 

I had already forgotten these nails, I just found them from my folder. Åhh, I made them so long time ago. Nowadays my nails are much longer and better shaped. 

Finally I did it! These are the very first mittens I've ever made. And the "sausage" (my Swiss host-sister calls it as a "wool wurst") is also my fisrt one. I used quite a thin wool, so I can wear them even when it gets warmer.

And then... Where should I start.

Ansku. If I've ever said a bad word about your games or spending time inside instead of going out... I have to take everything back. You see, few weeks ago me and my host-sister found this old board game. Since that... well. Just check these few pics:

Please notice our 'Lembas' next to the cards

Sauron has been defeated

 So. What can I say. We have spent nights playing this game. Although the rules are very complicated - 20 pages about normal playing + pages and pages about exceptions and special rules. And you can bet it took us forever to get familiar with all of them (English is neither of us first language)!
It takes about one hour to prepare the game. There are almost trillions of different cards plus these weird life-tokens, a ring-replica, five play boards and point-shields (with the points you can call Gandalf).
The game itself takes approximately 30 min. - two hours, depending on how well you play. Our last game lasted about 1,5h. And we're getting better and better.

Today we baked Lembas. The elf bread. We also spent the whole yesterday in Birmingham shopping everything (un)necessary stuff: glowing sword for Frodo, hand stickers (Elf-style)... And because Frodo (me) has this supercool glowing plastic sword we had to buy something special for Sam too; a glowing party mug (crap value, we couldn't get it working).

We were planning to have LOTR-marathon today, but because we slept too long and started baking Lembas we didn't have time for that. We only watched The Fellowship of the Ring - but hopefully the others (they are not very interested in the Ring) are going to sleep and we can still watch the second part. Maybe we'll find time for the last one tomorrow.

To make you laugh I'll unveil these secret pictures of our game last night:

Anja the Nazgûl

Frodo's equipment

The Lembas-cup

Nazgûl and Galadriel...

There's magic in your hands

Most of the pictures are taken by my host-sis Anja
__________
Mirva

The lovely days of doing nothing

Hopefully the snow has come to stay. Yesterday, and also today, was a beautiful, crisp winter day. A light, blue sky and a few minus degrees. I spent the whole day at home, today the same thing. I'm supposed to be studying. Ha. Maybe I will do something, English presentation or something, but then, I tell you, I'm gonna go play Baldur's Gate :DD

By the way, it seems like Mirva always writes these little novels in here and I just post a picture or few and say something about it. Am I too lazy or is it just because Mirva is in Birmingham and therefore knows English much better than me? I'm too proud to admit either option to be true :p

To be honest, it hasn't happened anything specific lately and I don't know what to write about. So maybe I'll just let this post be and go do that English presentation. Lol.

xoxo
Ansku

Finally!

On Christmas day the graveyard looked like this:

The 2nd of January in the morning our garden looked like this:

In the evening it was like this:

And for some reason I didn't take any pictures of what the ground looked like, so I guess I gotta tell about it :D It snowed all day and I was incredibly happy, since snow is what I've been waiting for all winter! Now it's already melting away (+4°C on January, really...), but I'm living in the hope that some of it will stay. I'm sure of it.

Was this supposed to be an art blog? Well, I don't have the slightest idea of how my posts should be any different from the blog I already have. In summer I hopefully get back to my oil paintings, but till then I'm probably gonna stick to photography. Too bad that I haven't really been drawing much lately. Guess I've just been either too busy or just too lazy.

xoxo
Ansku

Today I don't feel like doing anything

Last time I wrote here was at the beginning of my Christmas holiday. I told I hadn't done anything - so far. Well, my dear friends, I'm still not any better. 

 I'm sure this is not surprising anyone, but as you can see my old woolen socks have got new friends. It's definitely true that knitting is relaxing, but to me it's - most of all - just about killing time. This pair was actually a lousy excuse - I had this Christmas project and I had to do something with textiles. AND I had to do something with this grey wool I had plenty in my closet!
I could be more creative and take a challenge, make a pair of mittens or something... But the thing is that the weather here is not very freezing (don't worry, Ansku, we haven't got any snow either) and I already have one lovely mittens. But socks are something I use every day, and with blue top I obiesly can't wear red socks...

With my nails I've been as lazy as ever. I've given up with my "long nails" -project, and they are all about same lenght now. They are not short, more like... annoying longISH. They are not long enough for the french manicure (or any others), so I still have to play with magic when I'm decorating them. 

My other school project was about making something with an ordinary newspaper. I'm not ready with this yet, but I've started to draw this A3 "manga page". I'm going to use the newspaper, don't worry... I'll post more pictures when this is ready. I realized I needed more marking pens (and an eraser, ruler and normal pencils! Am I really an art student or what?) so I'm pretty stuck with the project now. That's more than excellent - the deadline is the day after tomorrow.

What else. Hmm. Well, I've started to read these two books my aunt and mum sent me for Christmas: "Toisen taivaan alla" ("Under the another sky") written by Virpi Hämeen-Anttila, and "Prinsessa Madeleine" ("Madeleine the princess") written by Laura Ala. The first one is really interesting, I've really enjoyed reading it. It's about the culture differences and seeking who you really are. Hämeen-Anttila's writing style... It's very facinating, but sometimes the senteces can be veeeery long and the story goes really slowly. But I do understand that the theme like this does need a very philosophic and calm representation.

Oh yes, I've also seen quite a few movies during these couple of weeks. I've civilized myself especially with good old Japanese animations. Totoro, Ponyo, Nausicaä of the Valley of the wind, Grave of the fireflies, Pom Poko and Kiki's delivery service. And how lovely they are! Not like I hadn't seen them before, but there's nothing better than a classic film you can watch again and again, hmh?

Aaaaaah I gotta mention this: one day on my way home I decided to check this little second hand shop. I really didn't even have much money with me and I wasn't planning to buy anything... But then I saw these super cool The Lord of the Rings -figures! I couldn't believe my eyes - six brand new (they were all in their original boxes) characters! They were all hand painted and really high quality! Ah, damn, I honestly didn't have money to buy them, but... you know me.

Gandalf the White, Orc captain, Sauron, Aragorn, Legolas and Nazgûl

_____
Mirva

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

It's nearly Christmas and still no sight of snow. A while ago I was so sure it would finally snow, but no, noooo, the temperature got over 0 again and today it has rained. I would HATE to have a black Christmas. I know you can have Christmas even if you were on Canarian islands, but STILL. Snow belongs to finnish Christmas. And I want to go cross-country skiing! And even though I don't really like going to sled hill, I would like to have that opportunity!

I don't understand people. This morning I read in a magazine, that about 50 % of it's readers (or at least of those who like to answer to those gallups) would NOT like to have snow. Really, even if you don't like snow, you should understand, that this situation tells something about the state of our planet!

Please, let it snow!

These pictures are from last winter and the winter before. Back then we did have snow. (Well, of course it will snow at some point, but I'm worried of how long it will take!)

xoxo
Ansku