I visited the Ateneum again, and one painting caught my eye with its almost comic-book-like perspective. I’ve made a few comic strips, and I realised the same comic-style effect could be used in an oil painting too. After our visit to the Ateneum we walked across Aleksanterinkatu, and I snapped a photo of that moment, which you now see captured here. The painting isn’t really a comic strip as such – for some reason the comic just inspired me to paint this moment.
I often hear people say, “I can only draw stick figures”. While painting this I chuckled that these people – if you took them out of the picture – wouldn’t even be recognisable as stick figures. Somehow, though, the eye and brain still form an image of people.
Here is the finished work. The darkness and gloom of December turn into a celebration of light in the shop windows. Aleksanterinkatu is an oil painting measuring 41 cm x 33 cm.
