Houston, we have a Christmas tree kind of a thing!

When Santa gives you lemons

Isn't it incredible, Christmas is just thirteen (13!) days away! I can't believe it - I haven't had too much time to get on a christmassy mood and feel like the D-Day is still a month away. One day, I tried to get in the mood and listened to some carols from the radio, but that lasted only until my boyfriend expressed his opinion about the cheerful children's falalas. Another night I burned candles, but only because it was storming outside, hailing inside (dear roof window, I'm afraid aren't doing your job too well) and I was haunted by the thought of a lightning slithering in through the electric cords. That didn't happen, nor did the christmassy mood.

Maybe the Christmas spirit will come when I go to the snowy land called Finland next week. Maybe it will come when I bake gingerbread cookies and decorate the Christmas tree. Maybe it will come when I'm trying find presents in the last minute despair with hundreds of other people, queuing in the shops and listening to Jingle effing Bells. Shame on me, I haven't got presents for anyone yet, so I hope my mind will blurt out some great DIY gift ideas in the coming days so that I can avoid those awful overcrowded stores. If not, I might end up baking the stone-hard cookies from last year and attach this illustration to the package as an upfront apology.

This illustration was inspired by an article I wrote for Oh Marie! magazine's winter issue. You can read it here: When Santa Gives You Lemons

PS. I've also started pinning some (ahem...two so far...) of my illustrations to Pinterest. You can find them here: Emmimarjukka - Things I drew

Buzz like a bee!

My freelance life has been quite chilled out lately: I have had a very reasonable amount of projects running simultaneously, and they all tend to have very reasonable deadlines, too. I have a timetable and usually dedicate one working day for one project at a time: on Mondays I do this, on Tuesdays I do that and so on. It helps me focus and get into a good work flow, when I don't have to think about everything at the same time. Sounds like a tip from some kind of a freelancer's guide..? It probably is.

However, this week I'm having an overflow of deadlines. I even scheduled some of them on following days, thanks to a not so smart brainwave that made me think my agenda was fairly empty. Turned out it wasn't, so here I am, working like a madman and multitasking my brains out, doing one thing in the morning, another one in the afternoon and something else in the evening. Like yesterday; I was in desperate need of some fresh air after sitting indoors from dawn to dusk, so I put on my sneakers and  rushed out for a jog. I ended up touring around the city for two hours, making mental notes for an article that I'm working on. Efficiency at its best - beats listening to your own breath and wondering how many meters you have left anytime!

I'm making it sound like I'm the busiest person on the planet Earth, so in all honesty I have to admit that some of the deadlines I'm talking about are self-originated. A friend of mine had a birthday, and I wanted to make a card - bing, a deadline! Me and my boyfriend celebrated two years of shared silliness, so I had to come up with something sweet for him - bing, a deadline! But I don't mind, because none of the deadlines - neither the personal nor the professional ones - involve doing something that I wouldn't enjoy. In fact, it is a great pleasure to be stressed out because of nice things!

With this positive mood and world embracing mindset, I shall leave you with this bee illustration I made for the cover of my agenda and proceed to the next thing on my to-do list: putting the mental notes from last night on paper (...or actually a word document...).

Farewell for now!

The devil is in the details

As part of the Secret Mission I'm on at the moment, I've been drawing plenty of kitchen and food related things: chairs, cups, cutlery, tables, teapots and celery. Some of them have been so called pieces of cakes that I've drawn, coloured and finished at once, whilst others have been drawn a dozen times before I have reached the point of perfection where neither me nor my client have found anything else to change or experiment with. 

Last week, I spent hours and hours drawing teapots: Japanese teapots, dainty teapots, metal teapots, teapots with smooth surface, teapots with texture and teapots with stripes. I also drew a jug of milk, but in the end it got ditched and put back in the creative fridge where it came from. Before that, I went through the same process with grapes, which didn't make it to the final illustration either.

That's the life of an illustrator: drawing tons of things on a sketch book thicker than a bible, whilst the end result of all that work might be just one illustration. At times, when I've spent 15 hours working hard and the outcome is just one illustration, I begin to wonder how did I manage to spend all that time working on one single image. At those times, it's good to remember that although it is just the hand-picked selection of top-notch drawings that end up being presented on the table, behind the door of the creative fridge there are dozens of sketches and tryouts that are not served - these grapes included.

Fantastic Fashion

Better late than never, right? Here's an editorial piece I illustrated and wrote for Oh Marie! magazine's Circus issue back in September.

Read the full article on Oh Marie!

I'm very pleased with how the illustration turned out, considering all the blood, sweat and tears that I had to shed for it. I had plenty of time to work on it, but this time, that luxury didn't really work in my favour. I got started well on time, but there were a lot of things going on at the time, so instead of finishing at once, I made a draft and kept post-poning finishing the illustration. On the last day before my deadline (yes!), right after a night flight from Turkey to the Netherlands (YES!), I had planned to spend a few hours "adding the finishing touches" to the piece. That little session ended up being 8 hours of intense work, as I decided to not be satisfied with my first draft and basically started all over again. Yep. Sitting there, penciling away with a major sleep deprivation, I gave myself a big applause for the great planning. Although in all honesty, I have to admit that in a sadistic kind of way, I often enjoy these kind of creative struggles and crazily intense work. It gives me the kicks, when/if I end up with something that makes all the "suffering" worthwhile. I must have been some kind of an Opus Dei priest in my previous life. You know, like the one in Da Vinci Code.

Time has really been flying in the past few months. I'm already wearing my winter coat and boots instead of ballerina flats, although it feels like it was just a few weeks ago that I was skipping around in a dress and munching away with sandwiches in parks, my cheeks sticky with sunscreen. Dear sense of time, where did you go?

Oh Marie!

I love magazines, and although I do enjoy an occasional Elle next to my tea, independent magazines are the ones that I am crazy about. I love reading them, making them and - most of all - discovering new ones. Earlier this year, a lucky click on Twitter took me to the website of an online magazine called Oh Marie. Overjoyed by my finding, I got in touch with Marloes Snijder, the superhero behind this digital brilliance full of cute things spiced up with wittiness - that's the way, aha aha, I like it! We met up, drank two cups of tea and decided to collaborate. So, from now on I'm a happy member of the Oh Marie-team, working as sort of a blog manager, producing and planning content to keep the readers busy with nice things to read and do whilst waiting for new issues of the magazine to come.

What I like the most about working with indie publications - digital or printed - is that they are usually run by a handful of very dedicated people. This does not only mean that the passion and motivation that goes into making the magazines could break glasses if it could sing, but it also means that there is lots of room for flexibility when it comes to putting all your skills in use. A writer doesn't have to just write if she can also draw. Now, you must be wondering what the grandma's desk and Arne's egg chair business above has anything to do with my ramblings. Well, it's just about that: me writing AND illustrating for Oh Marie! This one is the first image in the series of illustrated quotes and one-liners from the magazine's articles that we will feature on the blog. It is a sneak peek to the upcoming issue, which is going to hit your digital bookshelves no later than tomorrow. You can read more about it here on Oh Marie's brand new blog.

I also wrote a short article called "Fantastic Fashion" for the upcoming issue with an illustration next to it. The illustration was one of those kind of fun, creative things that end up giving you grey hair in the middle of the night, but now it is time for tea, so I'll tell you more about that later!

PS. Just noticed having mentioned "tea" three times in this post, which reminds me of something important I should share in case there are some fellow tea-addicts behind the screen. Remember the beauty spots on teeth that I was talking about earlier? Well, thanks to a terrifying article that my mom sent to me, I now know where that seemingly harmless beauty spot came from. Hence, I no longer drink any other tea than fresh mint tea...and Turkish tea, but only when in Turkey. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, you know.

Friday the 13th and a delusional toast

Just wanted to celebrate the fact that I haven't yet slipped on banana peels on this Friday the 13th by sharing this funny little animation about a charming, delusional slice of toast. The only thing that I'm wondering now is why would a toast want to eat cookies? Wouldn't that be like eating your own blood....sorry, flour relatives?

One unicorn, one secret mission and a few pieces of bacon

For the past few months, I have been on a Secret Mission. Surprisingly (...not), this mission is not related to three letter organisations or having Edward Snowden as my colleague; pencil is still my only weapon, although as a night owl I wouldn't say no to having a pair of night vision goggles, either. The Secret Mission has kept me busy drawing pots, pans, vegetables, cakes and different breakfast settings, and although I'm not to reveal too much about it yet, I thought to share a few pieces of bacon and cake with you to celebrate this Sunday morning:

Although Sunday mornings are always a good reason for a bit of celebration, this Sunday is extra special as it is the birthday of a friend of mine, who I had the pleasure to meet just a mere week ago. She is a sweetheart who sings like a bird and has three unicorns tattooed on her chest. One evening, we had a conversation about her tattoo, which lead to her telling how much she loved unicorns. I found it such a quirky thing to say; it really sounded as if we were talking about cats, dogs or other animals that actually exist. So, last night I grabbed my pencil and drew a unicorn for her. It's been a while since the last time I drew a horse, but thanks to having spent my early teens drawing nothing but horses, my hand hadn't completely forgotten how to do it.

Have a magical Sunday filled with magical animals and nice things to eat!
NOTE: No pun intended; unicorns are endangered species and horse mettwurst is kind of gross anyway.

More Secret Mission reports later!

Meow!

As you know, cats are cool. Stroking a cat or looking at one online is a sure cure when dwelling in heartaches, feeling ill or stressed out. Cats - natural antidote to pretty much anything!

Back in 2010 when I was interning at SUPERSWEET, the greatest indie magazine online, I was introduced to an office cat called Princess Michael. (There had been some confusion about her gender, hence the gender neutral name). Making fun of her, chasing after her and playing with her was a daily part of the life in the office - she was SUPERSWEET's sweetheart.

Although it's been only 3,5 years since my internship finished, it feels like ages since our small editorial team was sitting in the office, taking breaks to holahoop or and fighting about whose turn it was to go and queue in the post office during lunch hour (lucky for the others, my status as the intern who never said no to anything put an end to those fights). When my internship came close to its end, my boss and SUPERSWEET's creative director, Choltida, decided to move and take the company's HQ with her to Thailand. Sadly, this meant that SUPERSWEET had to part ways with Princess Michael as well; she couldn't handle all the traveling and stayed in London instead.

However, despite the new location and all other changes the company has gone through since the good ol' times in London, a few things have remained the same: SUPERSWEET's web shop is still up and running, and the corporate love for cats and silly things hasn't gone anywhere either! A while back, I got the honour to be reunited with SUPERSWEET when Choltida asked if I would like to illustrate an animated shopwindow for the web shop. The new shopwindow was to celebrate the launch of a brand new collection "Haberdashery" from the in-house brand called SUPERSWEET x moumi. The collection is supervised by Choltida and designed by indiepreneurs Moumi and her design team Kikilala and Myogi, all of whom happen to be cats. Yes, you read that right.

The illustration I drew for the collection stars the head designer Moumi juggling her designs. This is an illustration in progress, stolen from Moumi's Instragram and served with fitting sound effects.

And here's the finished shopwindow:

Although I'm not hundred years old, I think I am entitled to say that my memories from the SUPERSWEET times are pure gold! I was so happy to make this illustration and be part of a SUPERSWEET project again. Poor Princess Michael, though. She really missed out on a great career opportunity, when she decided to resign and stay in London. Who knows, she might have been promoted from an office cat to a designer by now!

A perfect picnic and some dental details

Click to enlarge

I've been doing quite some food related work recently. First, I gave a go at making (not baking) a cupcake. Then I collaborated with a client creating visuals to go with a children's story about eggs. Whilst doing that, I continued making personal foodie illustrations on my "waiting for feedback" breaks, and since picnicking is one of my all time favourite things to do, I decided to illustrate my personal recipe for a perfect picnic.

On a side note, apparently drawing all these sweet things has had an unwanted side effect on my teeth: today, I have a date with a dentist to check up and fix what I suppose is quite a large hole on one of my back tooth. "Quite large", because it was actually my boyfriend who noticed it from one meter away whilst I was yawning. Now, picture that!

Edit after the dentist's diagnose: Turned out the dark spot wasn't a hole - it was just what the dentist called "a tooth's beauty spot". Now the question is: does that make me a dental Marilyn Monroe...?