BIMU Interviews: Artist Lise Richardson!

Every now and again, I'll try to find someone to interview and pop them into my blog! :)

My first interview is with a young local artist in Central Finland, named Lise Richardson. We met through a crafting group and Lise is actually the one who designed my lovely header on this blog! Enjoy! BIMU

Freija on the left and Lise on the right!

Have you always been artistic as a child?? I'm a 21 year old illustrator. I think it's fair to say I was always the arty child of any given group. I went through packets after packets of printer paper - drawing ponies and other cute animals as any little girl would.

You're half Finnish and half British...which side do you feel most comfortable with? (I.e. English was language vs Finnish, British comedy vs Finnish television, cultural lifestyle comparison or preferences). Well well... Without "siding" with one half, I have to say I find it easier to express myself in English, and I'm a big fan of British television in general. That's not to say Finland hasn't got a lot going for it, because there's plenty I miss whenever I leave (rye bread and Karelian pasties, mainly). I think eventually it'd be nice to live in England again simply because there's a lot going on all the time in arts and culture, which is something I'd love to be more involved with. Here it's not quite so easy to connect with other artists, or actually people at all come to think of it, but maybe in a way that's quite nice in it's own way - I like my own space like anybody with Finnish blood! 

Favorite drawing techniques these days?? Apart from drawing outlines for paintings, I mainly only draw in the strictest sense of the term when I'm illustrating my blog (Pawprints to Bath). This changes every now and again of course, I've been painting a lot for the past six months but I may move onto other techniques again soon - that's the great thing about being an artist, you can switch whenever you want. 

Worst experience with ____ tool (pen, paint whichever)? Since I mainly work in watercolour at the moment, the absolute worst thing that can happen is spilling your mixing water on a painting. This happens more often than I care to admit!

What do you think the artists of the past (Van Gogh, Monet, Picasso etc) would think if they saw the art of today?? (I.e. The different techniques, especially digital.) I think perhaps some would find today's art a bit in-your-face, maybe even obscene if you consider what a leap it is from the work of Van Gogh to somebody contemporary like Damien Hirst or Tracey Emin. On the other hand I reckon somebody like Picasso would be really interested in all the artists of today who've been inspired by his own work, and perhaps might even find digital art not to be too far from the traditional media of his own time. After all, it's the same basic idea whether traditional or digital, you're trying to create something worth looking at.

You have a huge love for dogs, if you could have any breed or create a mixed breed -what would it be?? Right now I'm completely obsessed with terriers, I just LOVE beardy dogs! Skye and Sealyham terriers are some of my favourites. 

Tell us a bit about your two gals, Kara and Freija? Aww my girls. Kara is my eleven year old, grumpy but glam lady of the house. The essential Tibetan spaniel really. She's been a source of inspiration for essentially me entire art career. Freija is my little yorkiepoo buddy, she's been around for nearly five years now and she really makes me laugh. She's quite popular online, the little weirdo!

A recent piece done by Lise of her other dog, Kara.

Do you only draw, and recently crochet??  I suppose you could say I do a bit of everything, I do like trying my hand at all manner of techniques. I paint A LOT in gouache these days, more so than anything else, but my sets of colouring pencils HAVE been catching my eye lately...

How long does it take to design an image for a single greeting card?   My new range of cards is fun since I can manage a design or two in a day - the hard part is coming up with good captions!

Where can these cards be found in Finland?? Do you sell them outside of Finland too? Right now my only stockist is Harjun Paperi here in Jyväskylä, where they sell my Scenic Dogs-range of postcards. For all my newer designs plus greeting cards, art prints and gift items, pop over to my Etsy shop!

Look familiar?
Kara being her glam self! :)

Freija as well!

Do you have a favorite art museum? My absolute favourite art museum has to be the Towner in Eastbourne, England. I go there whenever I'm in town and there's always something interesting to see, old and new.

Is there a particular art style or artist that inspires you? I'm fascinated by artists from the turn of the century and the late 1800s. Lately I've been really into the work of James Tissot and Edmund Blair Leighton, but I suppose one of my main influences over the years has been the Art Nouveu movement. I find modern art perhaps slightly less accessible, but Pop art in itself and especially Kitsch has definitely had a big impact on my own work and themes.

Many governments, are cutting back on funding to the arts departments. How do you feel about this?? It's not good, to say the least. Art and culture is just as important as any other field, and it's a real shame the governments of many countries aren't prepared to invest in it. I know that it's tough for everybody, but I do wish something could be done to really boost the backing for art.

Where did you complete your studies? I finished my vocational degree in 2013 at Jyväskylä Educational Consortium in Petäjävesi, near Jyväskylä. I'd switched from Hyvinkää Art School halfway through my studies, but both places had a lot to teach me in both fine art and photography.
If you could have done your studies anywhere in the world, where would you have gone? I think getting my first degree here in Finland was a good choice (partly because I got to do an exchange work experience trip to my English home, Eastbourne) it's free and I got to see what I liked and didn't like in the broad field of art and photography. This year I'll be moving to Bath in England to start my BA in graphic communication, so we'll see how that compares!

When you aren't drawing or crocheting doggies, what are you more than likely doing??  Haha, nothing particularly exciting I'm afraid - I'll be walking the dogs or watching Heartbeat with my mum. Terribly domestic, I know! I also read a lot, detective stories and classics mainly.

If you won a million euros, what would you do with it?? Gosh, there's a thought. I'd probably start up a shop-come-gallery to sell my work and perhaps get some other artists involved too. That'd be the sensible thing to do. What's left from that I'd use on box sets, books, and antiques. I love antiques.

If you weren't an artist, what would be your next choice of career? Oddly I've never thought of myself as anything other than an artist. I used to volunteer at Marie Curie Cancer Care's charity shop back in Eastbourne, and I quite enjoyed pretending to be a shopkeeper, so perhaps I'd work in an antiques shop or something.

What's one technique or craft you do now but would like to better yourself in? I'm quite happy with my results in gouache, but there's also lots I can improve on - that's fine by me though, I'm happy as long as I'm learning.

What's one you'd like to learn?? I love learning new techniques and crafts, I really enjoyed learning crochet last year (I've not had time to do it a lot this year, but it's a lot of fun), and perhaps other traditional crafts would be interesting to try. I've done a little bit of screen-printing in art school years ago, and that's one thing I'm keen to learn properly too!

You're very young, and accomplishing a lot! What do you see yourself doing in five years? Ten and more? I suppose my main wish is to be creating art like I do now, and have others enjoying it and preferably buying my work! I'd really love to get out there and have my art recognised. That studio would be a plus, too!

What is something you want people to know about you and your work? Perhaps that I put a lot of love into everything I create, and that I really hope people can see that, and enjoy it as much as I do. What sort of advice would you give to someone wanting to be an artist? I think the key to being an artist is not taking yourself too seriously; do the thing you love, and be the best you can be. Every artist mucks up occasionally, the main thing is to convince everybody that yes, of course it's meant to look like that! Oh, and it doesn't hurt to get in with other artists, go and make some connections, you'll thank yourself later.

Favourite food, colour, ice cream flavor, 90's boy band, curse word? Avocado toast, pastel pink, peanut butter, Westlife, wanker.

Favourite book and movie you could watch non stop? Wuthering Heights, and Withnail & I.

Also, if you could meet any celebrity in the world, who would it be? Ricky Wilson (of the Kaiser Chiefs)

What are the best and worst things to give to an artist? Best: original artwork from an artist they love. Worst: tacky art supplies like pens from the petrol station

Best and worst things to say to an artist: Best: any real compliment like saying they adore the work. Worst: I personally find it a bit iffy when people call my work "striking".

Best song that describes you:  Eez-eh by Kasabian

You can find Lise on a variety of social media, I'll even link it for you below! Her Etsy Shop

Facebook

Pawprints to Bath - a blog about her soon to be adventure of moving back to study in the UK with Freija!

LiseRichardson.com - her main page which gives you access to her shop and her blogs, videos and photos! Instagram

**Photos used in this post were used by permission from Lise Richardson and from her Etsy shop listings. **

Learning About Finland: Baby Showers Are Few & Far Between

The term "Baby Shower" does not actually refer to the washing of the child or the tears...nope, not even the golden shower you might get occasionally (typical with boys) or the brown/green/black/mustard coloured splatter either.

In North America, a baby shower is the chance to shower the un-born baby and quite pregnant (or expecting - aka adopting or other alternative) mother with gifts, love, food and attention.
Usually the work place, Church, close friends and/or family would host one and quite often it's a surprise.
There's usually light finger foods, some games, prizes, sharing of birth stories or advice (especially for the first-time mothers) and that's that.

In Finland - it doesn't quite exist yet...
If you're an expat and living in Finland - don't be surprised if you don't get thrown a lovely gathering of friends, a pile of gifts and a stuffed tummy of food before your up-coming due date.
It's just coming to Finland in bits and pieces and typically most Finns don't name their child until they've met the baby and decide on a date for a "Naming Party" (often tied in with a christening or baptism).
That seems to be the prime time to meet the baby, congratulate the parents and the older siblings and bring a gift.
The only baby showers I have been to in Finland have been organized for those that are expats or know about baby showers because they have lots of expat friends or they're half Finnish.
Finnish men seem to have something called a "Little Toes Party" which involves getting dragged out and completely wasted for their "last time".

Today, my knitting group and I threw a triple baby shower.
Oh yeah - we went there.  We have three ladies all pregnant  (okay one had her baby last month) and all in agreement to having one baby shower together.
We picked a date, decided on potluck and trickily thought of three different gifts to get each expectant mother that would (hopefully) compliment her taste and style.
Oh yeah, and all three ladies were having boys.
We had the party at the mother who had her baby boy about a month ago's home and it was spacious, welcoming and it gave most of us a chance to see her new home. :)
Each of us brought a dish of food of some sort to share and we started with food because with all the wonderful smells coming from the kitchen/living room (it's connected) - it's hard not to resist on snacking here and there!
Once the food was done, we played some games.
We had a baby food tasting game (4 baby food jars with the labels removed and you had to guess what was in them by looks, smells and taste if you wished), memory game (20 items related to baby or child and after 5-minutes - you had to write down what you remembered) and charades.
Charades is a game where you draw a word or sentence and have to act it out silently so the others (or your team if the group is divided) can guess what you're trying to portray.
Funny enough, one of the expecting mothers drew the word "Delivery" and she got really into it, dropped down on the floor and imitated giving birth!!
I've never seen this done at a baby shower before but it was really funny and a hit (I think).  Definitely recommended!
For gifts I just ran into the grocery store and picked up random small sized chocolate or candy bars.  Simple and lots of variety for people to choose from. :)
Because we're a crafting group, it made sense to make/find gifts for the mothers that were unique to them.

• For the one who had the baby already - we each crocheted or knitted a square and shortened his name to 3 letters and knitted that into 3 squares and he now has a personalized blanket.
• For the one who technically lives in another city now and had to take the train back in a couple days - we didn't want to laden her down with a lot of heavy stuff and she had 2 simple requests.  Nothing blue and hooded towels.
• So we got terry cloth fabric, two of the ladies made 1 towel and some wash cloths to match. 
• We also each bought some cotton yarn, as she's a crochet fanatic and it was  all wrapped up in the shape of a pram for her.  And a little notebook to write patterns down too.
• The third was the trickiest.  We knew she has a nephew in her native country and a nephew here in Finland from her husband's side - so clothing was obviously not necessary. That and she's a knitting machine (and regularly designs her own patterns) and quickly becoming a sewing machine too.
• Ideas we had for her (that were quickly cancelled because she ended up receiving/buying or making them herself:
• Baby carrier
• Pram
• Scrapbook or baby record book
• We then decided on something she could never predict - nor her mother in-law or mother!  A little library for the baby.  We each brought our favourite childhood stories and the baby and parents will have loads to read in both Finnish and English. :)

Also, a friend in the group also made some hand-made soaps and pampering body-butters for the mothers based on their favourite scents.  And another member who couldn't make created some lovely personalized bookmarks.
Actually, you can check them out here in her Etsy shop - along with lots of other fantastic things like post cards, folded cards, calendars and the like!
Mostly dog-themed ;).

Then we had dessert and chit chat around the table!!
Fairly relaxed and some of us managed to get a bit of knitting done too.

I'll write a separate blog post about ideas for baby showers and how to go about setting it up!
Until next time!
BIMU