I often find it very difficult to talk about my artworks, which itself is quite an oxymoron, but I suppose it is based on the long-rooted belief I have that art is always a personal experience, and I don´t want to change the way the viewer sees it.
It is an oxymoron because, in order to sell art, one should be able to talk about it. I am starting to unlearn myself from this habit of not talking about my art and talking more about my artworks and illustrations. These will be short format articles and I will try to do this with every single one of my artworks.
​Simple Taste
I painted this painting when I was in art school. I studied illustration at a university in Wales. I can say that I was a very erratic art student. There were times when I aced the assignments and got really good feedback from my tutors, and there were times when I absolutely sucked. Time has been a great friend in terms of my illustrations because I've noticed that the less stress I have the better paintings I make. University had so much stress and in my case, it often came outside the university, was it then apartment problems or me struggling with having bank accounts in two different countries (I am from Finland and I studied in the UK).
The simple taste was a fun assignment. We were asked to make illustrations for newsletter articles and I choose one about fusion food. One of my tutors gave me the best advice that one can give to a food illustrator.
“Make it look like it´s delicious and you want to eat it yourself”.
It´s so simple and makes so much sense.
The first version of the painting was not so great and I wasn´t so happy with it. I modernized the colour palette and I think it came out very nice and I got a good degree in the assignment.
What do you think? good enough to eat?
I do paint food images sometimes, but I don´t consider myself a food illustrator, but this piece is one of my most popular food illustrations.
If you would like to get “Simple taste” to yourself, prints are available on my Redbubble store.

​This painting is something that I like to refer to as “Kitchen art”. I might sell a print or few (or thousand…still waiting for that to happen) and it´s something that people would hang out to their kitchen wall to bring them joy.
It was painted many years ago with my signature loose watercolour technique. There are as many different watercolour techniques as there are artists. The secret to the “loose” watercolour technique is that the light of the painter shines through. This doesn´t mean that we should literally see the colour of the paper, but that when the tranquillity of the watercolour is combined with the light paper surface, this creates patterns and colour combinations that even the artist can´t always control.
What about mandarins….I like mandarins. I eat them a lot. Especially during wintertime. Here in Finland, we get mandarins imported during winter and that is when they grow in the southern hemisphere. When I was a child I always connected mandarins to Christmas.
If you are just learning to paint, don´t pay too much time looking for inspiration. Just see what you have in your cupboards or fruit bowls and use them as models.
If you´d like to get “Mandarins” hanging on your wall, prints are available on my Redbubble store.
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I want to become better at talking about my art so I am writing short-form stories of how I became an illustrator and stories behind my artworks.

​One of the most rewarding things about being an illustrator and trying to paint and draw every day (I don´t always manage to do it but I try) is that you see yourself becoming better at it. 
“Making goulash” is an older work. Painted around 2010 (over a decade ago). I have technically improved a lot, but I have very fond memories of the time I painted this painting.
If someone doesn´t know “goulash” is a Hungarian dish. It´s a meat stew/soup made of peppers, paprika, meat and vegetables. When I was in my mid-twenties I was in exchange in Budapest and lived in Hungary for three months. Being a vegetarian myself I made tofu-goulash.
One time I and a group of fellow Finnish students were invited to a food party and that is where I made the sketch for this painting. Now when I look at it, it actually reminds me how carefree a person I was and at that time. I didn´t really want to do anything else than travel, eat good food and paint and hang out with great people. 
I´ve got to do many of those things and for that I am grateful. 
If you´d like to hang “making goulash” to your wall, prints are available at my store. 
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I want to become better at talking about my art so I am writing short-form stories of how I became an illustrator and stories behind my artworks.

“Plate of sushi” was one of the illustrations I did in the university when studying to become an illustrator.
It´s cute. It´s colourful and above all, I loved painting it.
In art school, we were given different topics to illustrate and the goal was to work on all these different projects so one could eventually find their own niche. This time the theme was “sushi”.
I watch lots of illustrators on YouTube from different parts of the world and I have time to time come across “self-learned artists” who tear down art schools and universities in their videos. 
I loved my time in the university and maybe the difference between myself and those people was that I took it very seriously. I am originally from Finland and I moved to the UK just for the uni (and my university was surprisingly popular among Finnish students). There were times that were really tough. For example, I had to move houses often, because of reasons that I didn´t have much control over and that caused lots of stress, then there were political threats like Brexit (which is not a topic for this article. I will say it created a crazy amount of mental stress). 
At the university, I felt at home. I felt that I was exactly in the place where I wanted to be because ever since I was a child, I wanted to be an illustrator. I also wanted to be an animator and an archaeologist but more than anything else I wanted to be an illustrator. 
People ask me this all the time, why didn´t you study to be an illustrator in Finland? if I had the opportunity maybe I had, but I wanted to study illustration full time. I wanted to know how to turn it into a career and unfortunately still today Finland doesn´t have art schools where you can do that. 
Yes, sometimes the feedback that I got from uni teachers felt harsh, but the more days and months and years passed by and the better I became, that constructive criticism turned into praises. 
No, no one can ever tell me that art schools are bad, but I also say it´s not good for everyone. You need to know what you want. 
I think the best thing that I learned in my time studying one of my true passion was that you should never be afraid to experiment.
Illustration and creating art, in general, is supposed to be a fun and fulfilling process. There was a time when I use to dislike sketching and going straight to my paints and watercolours. Now I could not be without it. 
Another one of my favourite techniques that have stuck with me after leaving the university is to make mind maps that will help me to get inspired. 
What would a mind map for “sushi” look like? The first words that come to my mind are “Japan” “Kawaii” and “fish”. What comes into mind from the word “Japan”? I think of cherry blossom trees, the rising sun and the mountain Fuji.
There we already have six different ideas that we could use in a set of sushi illustrations. 
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If you feel like Sushi, prints and stickers are available in my store. 
I want to become better at talking about my art so I am writing short-form stories of how I became an illustrator and stories behind my artworks.