The good thing about having most of your lectures over zoom is that you can upgrade from sketching in the margins of your notebooks, to spreading out brushes, paints and papers over the whole kitchen table. Watercolors are perfect for this, because they work best in layers; but I usually get too impatient and mess everything up. Having my attention divided helps me slow down a bit, and suddenly I’ve just made something. Here’s a few things I made during my lecture about.. something.

Heart.♥️

Landscapes, kind of.

Today I had coffee with a girl in my journalism course here in Stockholm. I told her that I don’t know if I have the energy to build new social circles again. But even just saying that to her was a starting to build; a good day’s work.

The yearly rhythm

Around New Years I try to live,
and I succeed exponentially
as the sun gets brighter
and gives more heat.

Then I collect myself.
About this time each year.

Some pieces have ended up folded over folding chairs, next to drying bikinis and worn, unread books.

I feel like I’ve left limbs:
the excited wave of a hand,
my feet over worn down stones,
my heart over again,
to shore after shore,
meeting after meeting.

The confetti glitters

until it’s caught by the gravity of fall,
and it sinks back down to me,
all out of order and organization.

I need to make everything big enough to fit inside me again.

The clean up happens when the evenings turn dark.
This is the inwards speaking,
writing down, painting,
time of making this experience make sense.

I pick up each leaf and look at it.

You are set for freedom,
made for something bigger than this,
in the midst of this.

Etsy

🌌💫

For my childhood home.

Skrivet sista kvällen.

För det du har varit.
För ormbunken.
För skogen.

För de döende träden som höjer sig över mig när jag går den mörka vägen fram. Himlen är mörkblå. Gräs och löv mörkgrönt. Ljust i ljuset, svart i skuggan. Jag går längs den gamla cykelvägen och väljer en plats att vända mig om och titta, och vägen bakom mig frågar om jag är redo att gå vidare. När jag svarar ja och vänder mig om kollapsar den in bakom mig, döende träd och solnedsgångsstigar och barndomskojor där vi letade efter de första blåsipporna varje vår. Det sväljer sig själv. Gatlyktor och måne och träd blir om intet. Och i dess plats, i samma ögonblick som det försvinner, stiger ur samma intet det gröna gräset tillbaka, vått av dagg i morgonen, i det stiger knoppar, babyblå och rosa, som försöker ta sig till solen – blomstrar till små blommor – unga som dagen vecklar de ut sig; vackra som allt tungt de inte behöver bära.

Och så överlämnar vi barndomen till någon annan.

All cut apart and ready to… sell? Put in my pile of other little paintings? Well, something.

♥

What? I can nap? You mean I don’t have to resort to escapism due to the underlying shame of not being productive?

Nice.

What even is my art style?

Right now I realised that this pen is wonderful in combination with these paints and this really nice paper, and so I made a certain kind of little paintings. But it’s not really my style. Or is it? I wonder how long I’ll feel like I’m in the developing stage of who I want to be as a painter.

Anyway, my style or not, I’m really happy with these portraits.

Adding another face:

(Also, I’m in the midst of moving back home to Sweden (from Germany) but for some reason I just want to paint? Maybe I’m processing something.)