'Kyy', Indian ink and watercolours, 21 x 21 cm, 2015.
Created at a drawing course. The original task was to draw a Kalevala themed self portrait i.e. choose a character from the finnish national epic and draw yourself as that character. Finding a character from the epic proved to be too complicated for me, so at the end I just decided to start drawing something. Even though I didn't choose an exact character from Kalevala, I had have Kullervo in my mind, but instead of the (anti)heroes of Kalevala, I found the animals in the epic more inspiring, especially the adder ('kyy'). The character is a combination of this thought/draw process. On the background emerged the seamonster Iku-Turso.
In the beginning I didn't know I'd end up colouring the picture. I had the outlines done with indian ink before the colouring decision and I was about to do the colour work with coloured inks or watercolours. I was very scared that working with watercolours might cause the black outlines to run when contacted with water again, but fortunately that didn't happen. I usually do the outlines last if I use watercolours.
