Time to start thinking about this week's Thursday theme - black. It's not really my thing since I love painting with color, but I'm sure I'll come up with something :) Black is not just black, there are so many different shades of black. I you enter a painting store you'll find tubes of ivory black, lamp black etc etc..

Borrowed the photo from this week's host; Lady Thirty. Here's her blog:

http://ladythirty.se/

This is one of the reasons why I love oil painting. Look at the background of the first picture. It looks kind of dead or matte to me.

Then look at the picture below. I've only covered the background with oil. Doesn't it look more glossy and alive?

Bought an old easel and a couple of books yesterday which I'm eager to show you later on. Also, I'm creating some new stuff.

This one is based on a photo from the butterfly exhibition in London. It had just recently escaped its cocoon and was spreading its wings for the first time. Such an amazing sight!

I know I know, there's nothing new about painting butterflies, lots of others do it too (like Damien Hirst). But honestly, who doesn't love butterflies? They're both beautiful and spiritual, and for someone who loves colors like me it's the perfect thing to paint <3

Came to think about that I forgot to tell you about the statistics for Höstsalongen. 207 artists turned in 473 works of art and out of them 133 artists and 271 works of art were selected by the jury. Happy to be one of them :) Countdown, one week left to the vernissage!!

Good news! One of my paintings has been selected for the exhibition Höstsalongen! It aint the Raw Icecream painting though, but another one which is slightly bigger. I've showed you sneak peaks of it when I've been working on it, and I've also published a sketch of it, but I can't remember having showed you the finished thing?! The step-by-step tutorial will probably be up after the vernissage :) 

Soo...now you have to pay the museum in Karlstad a visit :D 

Other artists from my town are also represented there, for example Magdalena Andersson which I've exhibited with before. Love her work <3 You can see the whole list of artists here. 

Last year I participated in an group exhibition in Folkets Hus, Björneborg, and today I got the invitation email to this year's edition:

Wether you want to exhibit your own artwork or if you're just interested in watching art and taking a coffee you should check this out. Last year, you could see both pencil drawings, oil, acrylics etc. 

Hopefully I'll be able to participate this year too. I have a clear idea of what kind of work I'd show in that case, but I don't know yet if I'll be on Swedish ground that date...

If you are thinking about exhibiting I'd recommend to decide quickly - there are only a few spots left!

I know, I'm too early as usual, hehe (one hour left until Thursday). My contribution this week is this oil on paper. "Wild and free" right :) Host this week is: Nollfemnolltva

I've realized I've been overusing the word hyperrealism here, without even explaining what it means. A photo realistic painting is a painting which resembles a photo. Sounds kind of obvious, right? But what about hyperrealism? 

Briefly, it can be explained by a realistic painting that goes beyond photo realism. This is what the word means to me:

When we look at something we have to decide where to focus or gaze – if you look at a doll, the sourroundings and the background gradually gets blurry. It is the same think if you take a photo of a doll, you have to focus your camera on a certain point because you cannot get the photo completely sharp everywhere. Taking photos is a compromise when it comes to blurryness (we talked about that on the photo course), but also in other aspects like shading, colors, moving objects etc. When you paint on the other hand, you can decide to make the painting sharp with lots of details and colors throughout the whole painting if you want to. The painting gets even more realistic than the reality as seen through our eyes or a camera lens, amazing hu! Someone who paints photo-realistically on the other hand, would follow the original photo slavically. 

What I love about hyperrealism is that you can push the boundaries of photo realism. You are no slave under the rules of photography. You can use your imagination and artistic freedom, make up shades and details which weren't there from the beginning. You can combine elements from different photos or from your own mind to create a painting as long as it looks real (which is what I do). 

A parenthesis: In philosophy, hyperrealism refers to realism and the technological advancement. The mind cannot always distinguish between fantasy and reality (also think about video games). The reality we perceive (the hyper reality) might not be the same thing as the "real" reality.

"I used to be so fragile, but now I'm so wild" 

I've been through both a fragile and a wild period. A fragile period where I let my emotions take to much space, and a wild period where I tried to drown out the sound of my restless soul and bury my emotions under endless layers of shallow events. 

At this point in life, I rather focus my energy on my interests and things that fill my life with more meaning than parties or untamable emotions. Now I've decided to build something.