At the very beginning od February I travelled to the city of Bratislava to take down the exhibition and take my artworks home. The exhibition was actually prolonged to the end of February, because the response was so positive, which warmed my heart a lot. The de-installing was so quick and easy with the help of kind people at the bank. We packaged all of the artworks into buble wrap and put them into the car.

As February got to it´s middle, I finished all of my exams at the university. I was very glad for that because it was a difficult month and a half for me studying. When I had more space to breathe, I wanted to do more painting, but as always there are a ton of other things to do as well, together with my bachelor thesis, and so I got a bit overwhelmed too. But I managed to find a few hours in the week to paint. When I looked at the paintings that I have started making, I got a bit of a feeling of paralysis. It´s that feeling when you don´t know what exactly to do and so you rather keep your hands away from the job. But that is a very detrimental thing. So what I did instead was sit at the easel and paint, even though I did not know exactly how. I needed to let go of that wall of perfectionism. This is the painting that I got into first (night painting).

I have also decided to create a sister to the painting „Greetings to a grey lake“ because I was in love with it´s calming effect and wanted to use that idea a little bit more than just creating one painting. I am still working on it. I chose the same size canvas for it, 100×140 cm. I used a lot of Google street view pictures as references and „drove around“ a bit. The quality is not the best, but these pictures are natural and authentic, they capture some of the humble beauty of the countryside.

I had also finally prepared and sent off to printing my own postcards which I mailed to a local gift store in Iceland – if you are ever in Iceland, check out Saga Store in Reykjavik! The owner is a very pleasant woman I was grateful to work with. The preparation took much longer than expected with all the little tweaks like fonts, colors and barcodes but I am so happy with the results. The cards have a very pleasant matte finish. This is a picture of how I was packaging them. I did it carefully to make sure that they would not bounce around in the box or get damaged in any way, so I utilised a few smaller boxes inside a larger box.

I had always wanted to have my artwork somewhere in a beautiful place like Iceland and my dream has come true. I am so happy they can make the world more beautiful there.

I was even thinking of making more Iceland paintings for the next time, but I also have not had inspiration to paint Iceland for a long time. But who knows, maybe I will get inspired to do something like that, since my inspiration is so unpredictable. But for now, I am painting Norway and Sweden after the trip in summer 2023, which I might also write a blog about.

I want to share a little craft that I did in this month as well, it is this garland made of maple pods. I found the idea on pinterest. I created little dragonflies out of them. For the surface, I polished them with a nail polish, which chipped of a bit after it dried. I used basic liquid glue for gluing them together. I made two different garlands – one of large green pods and one of small red pods, both of which I collected in the spring of 2023, I just haven´t gotten to actually doing it. I put it onto my bed canopy to make it look cosier, since I was feeling that it was lacking something. I think now it looks much better. It kinda looks ethereal even.

I have another craft that I finished, but it was actually in January. They are these handmade journals. I made them completely by hand, including tying together the text blocks. Some of them even have pages that are dyed with tea. I enjoy these as they remind me of a fairy treasure from the forest. The journal that I chose for myself is a one with tea dyed pages too. The others I plan to sell. If you are interested in any, send me a message. They are actually not perfect because I have not made many so far. I have one picture of one I made a year ago. Hopefully I will get better with future journals.

I also want to share with you one artist that I found that I really liked. Her name is Veronika Koucká and she is a czech artist that mainly makes these haunting black and white fairytale forest themed artworks that really mesmerized me. This is a link to her shop https://www.sashe.sk/AtelierJenSen

It´s the end of February and the spring is here. Never in my life has spring come in February ever. It´s a weird feeling and I also get the spring fatigue. Here are some photos from my walk in the forest.

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