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The fourth fish in my series of small linocuts with monoprint is a tropical individual or an aquarium fish. In Finland, such flat round creatures do not swim in the waters. This one also has sharp dorsal fins. The size of the picture is only 9 x 9 cm.
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The pike is the third linocut of a fish with a monoprint. A pike is a long fish, so here it is bent almost into a ball. The size of this is only 9 x 9 cm.
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The next in my series of small fish linos with a monoprint is a slightly scared-looking creature swimming. Is a bigger fish chasing it or does it see a good catch. The blue-green monoprint of the background is made on Gelli plate and the linocut is printed last. The size of these is only 9 x 9 cm.
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Oh, it's so nice to start a messy monoprint project sometimes. My intention is to make a rather large series of combinations of monoprints and linocuts of different sizes. I start with the smallest pictures, only 9 x 9 cm in size. The first six of these have a linocut of a fish. The background is a greenish-blue monoprint, so water.
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The English naïve artist Martin Leman's (b. 1934) painting "What Shall I Wear Tonight" is from 1972. The yellow fat cat, looking numb, seems to say: "Always the same". There are many great details in the picture: a Persian carpet, a rose that fell on the floor, a speckled wallpaper like a starry sky, a lace tablet on an armchair, funny thick-soled shoes of a woman sitting on a chair, big curly hair and a plush velvet chair. The atmosphere of the room is dark, but the eye is caught by a pale blond nude figure on a chair and the same woman in the background looking in the mirror.
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Now this my biggest mixed media work so far is ready, 140 x 80 cm. The work got its name from Juice's song Odysseus: "The birds have already flown away into the clouds. So long flowed, long flowed are the waters". Was it fun to do - well, it was! At one point, I hesitated whether such a purple wild sky and blue-green quiet water would go together. But in between there is a linocut of the houses on the Pispala ridge and a elm tree on the Tahmela beach, smoothing out the view. The sky and water are a soft pastel. The birds, moon and fish are also linocuts. Many details could have gone wrong and ruined the picture. But the only "bump" is a woodpecker flying upside down, and that doesn't bother me. Do you notice that semi-arc I outlined from the flock of fish starting from the reeds on the right edge to the flock of birds ending up in the upper right corner?
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My friend wanted to buy a slightly older linocut of Pispala ridge as a wide model. I had made this view of the ridge, houses, stairs, vegetable gardens and Tahmela's beach by adding two A4-sized pieces in the middle to the previous 40 x 60 cm version. The size of the wider picture is 40 x 90 cm. We both wanted a small splash of color in the picture. Together we figured out how to add light to the windows. Now a yellow light shines from the windows of the top of the Pispala shot tower, as well as from the top floor of Pyynikki observation tower. It seems to be about the darkening of the evening, and the picture was named after Lauri Viita's poem: "A light has come on in the window".
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A flock of fish in Tahmela's beach water begins to take shape. Some fish swim to the left and others to the right. So there is quite a lot of hustle and bustle in the beach water.
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The works for the summer exhibitions were taken to Art Pispala's frame shop/galley for framing. My little wall by the door had received a lin ocut of Pispala and a hot air balloon to accompany the Pispala shot tower linocut. Peeking behind the door was Esa Riippa's absolutely wonderful Night Tree/Yöpuu graphic.
