Nordic Interior Redux

 

4/22/26 National Nordic Museum's interior

The National Nordic Museum’s current exhibition is an enchanting collection of reproductions from Finnish artist Tove Jansson’s “Moomin” children’s book illustrations. The exhibit also includes large photographs showing the artist’s fascinating, secluded life in a tiny house built on the rocky shore of a tiny island.

Sculptural bird suspended from the ceiling. 

After enjoying the exhibit, Roy, Mary Jean and I wandered around in the permanent collections to sketch. Whenever I visit the Nordic Museum, I’m just as intrigued by the building’s unusual architecture as by the exhibits. As I’ve done in the past, I stood on one of several “bridges” between the two sides of the museum and sketched across the length of the building from floor to ceiling (top of post). That’s MJ on the far “bridge” sketching a similar view from the opposite side.

At left is a closeup of one of several bird sculptures suspended from the ceiling.

Roy and I were passing back and forth a small concertina booklet to give to MJ for her birthday. For the booklet, I made the sketch below of MJ sketching a traditional Swedish carved Dala horse. Very untraditionally, it was whimsically painted with symbols of Seattle like the Space Needle. (I don’t have a scan of the sketch because we presented the filled booklet to MJ that day.)

Material notes: Restricted to pencil inside the museum, I happily pulled out my current pairing of warm/cool Derwent Drawing pencils, Brown Ochre and Grape. I love using Grape, which is almost a cool gray, but Brown Ochre seems a little too pale to show variations of values. I’m keeping the Grape for a while longer but swapping out Brown Ochre for something a bit darker.

One of many delightful reproductions of Tove Jansson's "Moomin" illustrations