Gray

Johan Gaellman almost 2 years

Hello Gray

Sorry for taking so long before getting back to you. I do enjoy being in touch with you. Ive been busy with the house and it took quite a while before we got internet here. But now things are starting to shape up.

How is your flat? You told me last time that you were moving as well. Hope its gone well. Everything (drawing, writing and other creative things) has been on pause since we moved. Its been a great summer though! I am very happy about the place we've moved to.

Are you on Facebook? Ive got pictures of the house there.

All the best/Johan

Johan Gaellman about 2 years

Hello Gray!

Nice to hear from you again! I see that it was a few weeks ago since you wrote, but its not until know that Ive got focused enough to write to you. My head has been spinning ;).

We are about to buy a house in the countryside, near Karlstad. It is almost too good to be true. (My dream since many, many years). Its been a strange experience with the bidding and other things around this, but now it seems like the house will be ours! I havent done so good in the fiction project though. I decided to let it go, knowing my mind has its limits :)  A reason is also that I got started writing a book about a month ago. The story is all-in-all finished but there is some shaping up with the text that needs to be done, and perhaps some other changes. (It is a kind of a fantasy/sf-story for younger people).

I like Schjerfbeck very much, and also have a book about her, which I bought second hand. (Im always on the lookout for art books too, and as you say, they can be very expensive in the shops).

Keep humming Gray! I am sure it gets your fellow passengers in a good mood!

Johan Gaellman about 2 years

Hello Gray!

It was a great surprise to see that it again was possible to log in here. Hope you are well, and that the snow is leaving way for summer. We have had a really tough winter here, but now we are beginning to see the roads again :)  Even some walkways have been cleared, so people dont have to walk in the middle of the street!

Im doing the fiction project with the title "forgetting to call you back". It is fun to let the mind find its way, and to see where it ends up. I have a kind of a story/situation and think ive got the big concept fairly clear. But then I dont know my mind too well (fortunately) so it is still exciting! :)

Hope you are well, and that the summer, and the Danish summer house sea bath moment, reach you in a near future!

/Johan

Katherine Statsenko over 2 years

Hi!! I love that new picture of you on the blog in the orange shirt! You are so pretty! I don't speak Japanese, I deleted that comment it was some sex website! Anyway, I tried to leavea comment on your blog, but I can't.??

THe egg project is very interesting I wish I could see the whole thing :)

We are working in only black and white right now and I think it will stay this way until the end of the semester.

Yeah color could be very strong for a mind. I heard that pink could make you mad I don't know if that's true or not. My high school teacher probably just hates pink. I knew this guy who always wore yellow and he was the happiest person I knew at the time. Who knows? Are you a teacher? What do you teach? How old are the kiddies?

Katherine Statsenko over 2 years

Hi Gray! Yeah I was thinking of screen printing or potato printing is fun too! I wonder what would the iron work do to the dye? Would it set it in place? I was just chatting with Elly and she talked about walnuts the raw kind with the green skin on top of the shell. When you take the green skin off it stains your hands dark brown/black and that made me think also of Morus or Mulberry berries they stain like hell, when I was young I used to eat them a lot from the trees and the only thing would get it out is juice from the trart cherries.

We had to pick four words but mine resembled 2 or more each, I couldn't deside. I picked -anxious, order, increase and open but it also looks like lonley, because it's like a one open white square. But for the anxious one, one girl said that it was tranquile or calm for her. I was so confused. However, I like what I did, I just couldn't decide what words represented all of them.

Tell me more about this egg drop!

Oh, I just read something in the paper that reminded me of you and mushrooms, since you like to pick them. Basically some mushrooms that are safe for eating could turn poisonous if you drink alcohol while eating them! So, don't drink and shroom! I guess the alcohol does something to them, just thought I should let you know.

Elly Wright over 2 years

Hi Gray, I'm a follower of your blog - lovely photos. However, I cannot leave a comment - don't know why. Cannot find you on Facebook. Send me a friend request if you like - would be nice to meet you there!

Katherine Statsenko over 2 years

Hi Gray! I never heard of dying with fruit tee! That sounds intersting, I also like the beetroots idea that could be very pretty I'd think.

I don't have a facebook or twitter, though I do have a myspace page - www.myspace.com/MissPompadour that I rarely use lol. I actually never wanted to get myspace but my friend wanted to create a page for me so I said okay fine I'll do it myself, so I did. - So much for standing up against peer pressure.

I do have an etsy, do you? But it's not as successful as I want it to be but I guess it takes time and luck, I hope. :) It's fun though I find a lot of art that really inspires me there and I want to make some jewelry also.

The glue project was for my 2D design class we were working in black and white and we had to portray a word with cut out shapes from black paper, like lonley or anxious and arrange them on 9x9 inch squares. I'll post some pictures when I get them from my teacher, which should be next week I think.

How's the dying going? I wanted to tell you about maybe printing on fabric. Like patterns or leaves I want to try that I never tried doing it on fabric like that I want make pillow cases with leaves or something. I think that'd be so pretty. But then it's hard to find eco friendly dyes.

Have you heard of Lotta and her books? She's awesome - http //jansdotter.com/. I bought her books from Barnes and Noble but they sell them on amazon.com as well.

Johan Gaellman over 2 years

I understand that you are fond of the sea :) Good that you can go to Denmark this summer. Ive been to Denmark on a few art projects the last few years. But it might not be anything this year, though. Ive been to Silkeborg, doing paper art. There are really nice people. I got in touch with them some years ago through an exhibition, and since then we've been in touch. Have you been to Silkeborg?

By the way, I have to tell you since I mentioned it last time. We went to see that summer house. But the funny thing was that the key didnt work! It was the right key, alright. But the lock had completely frozen. We tried hard for fifteen minutes, and then we gave up and went home... It seemed good from the outside though :)

Katherine Statsenko over 2 years

HI!! Sorry I took so long to respond, I have been working on a project for my class which required a lot of smelly glue and cutting, but I am done with it now, I can't stand that glue! lol Thank you for all of your nice comments!

I need to try embossing without any medium, it seems really cool! What's MDF? For the dying do you think red/purple cabbage would give out color like onions? I always wondered about that but never tried. My family always dyed Easter eggs in onion peels. I also know this folk tradion of how to find out if mushrooms are edible or not - you peel a whole onion and boil it with mushrooms, if the onion turns black the shrooms are poison but if the onion is fine then they are edible. My grandma always did that and I am still alive, though don't try it! I don't won't you to die because of me!

What's photo etching? I looked up Hundretwasser and he is amazing!! Thank you for telling me about him! I love that he created fine art but also he was an architect and those buildings of his are so quirky cool! I want to travel and see them now!

Johan Gaellman over 2 years

Hi Gray

Good that you keep up with sketchbooks and sewing! I think it could be disasterous (is that a word?! :)) to totally skip the creative flow for a longer period. It might be tricky to get back to it, if its left out for too long.

Yes I signed up for the fiction-project, but I still havent got any sketchbook sent to me. Well it said it would take 2-3 weeks, so I hope it will arrive any second now :)

Tonight we got another bag of snow poured over the city. Its very much winter, this winter :)

Today we're going to see a summer house. Hopefully it will be good, and something we can afford. (My "desperate" need to get a foot out in the countryside is slightly bigger than that of my girlfriend... but she just might fall for it).