I only want to live in peace and plant potatoes and dream

I've got the drawing bug lately, I can't stop. I draw everyday, promising myself only a few hours, I must go to bed at a sensible hour. Oh I'll just finish this little bit - before I know it it's 3AM and I'm still drawing. My once white desk is now a big graphite smear with splotches of technicolour paint. November is always like this for me when I think back. A lot of my favourite pieces have been created in past Novembers. I wonder if part of it is to do with the feeling of hibernation as winter sets in. I also think a lot of it is left over from my school days as by now projects would of been in full swing. Old habits die hard and all that.

"The quiet transition from autumn to winter is not a bad time at all. It's a time for protecting and securing things and for making sure you've got in as many supplies as you can. It's nice to gather together everything you possess as close to you as possible, to store up your warmth and your thoughts and burrow yourself into a deep hole inside, a core of safety where you can defend what is important and precious and your very own. Then the cold and the storms and the darkness can do their worst. They can grope their way up the walls looking for a way in, but they won't find one, everything is shut, and you sit inside, laughing in your warmth and your solitude, for you have had foresight."

― Tove Jansson, Moominvalley in November

I had this book on preorder and it finally arrived, it's one I've wanted for a long time. It's a biography of Finnish author and illustrator Tove Jansson, whom is one of my biggest inspirations in life. I'm generally very leery of biographies, if I'm going to read something I'd much rather it be an autobiography. So often biographies get facts wrong or are filled with the authors unwarranted opinion. Dr Tuula Karjalainen released this book in Finland to coincide with Tove's centenary and I've been patiently awaiting an English translation. Karjalainen really knows her stuff and this book is an absolute treasure.








A couple of my favourite Moomin strips.