I ordered, cleaned, fumigated and painted the studio. Then I started the summer vacation. The first thing when I arrived home was to draw. It just felt so easy and carefree when done on holiday.

Next week we fly to our summer cottage located by a lake near Jyväskylä, Finland. I love relaxing there, just reading and going to sauna but I know myself and the fact that too easy life drives me soon crazy, I need professional activities.

9-13 August, I'll do a week-long project at Ti-la (Jyväskylä), which is an ambitious project by Anna and Juho - they organize during this year 52 solo shows of Finnish artists. Initially I had several real exhibition ideas but finally I decided that I'm going to try something I wouldn't do in normal circumstances. I'm going to improvise. I begin to work on Monday and I hope that I have some works to show before Saturday. I've added another challenge in the game too - no money can be used in the materials. The project might a total failure but it's also my opportunity to show that I'm a true genius.

A couple of years ago Raúl asked me to send a work to a show he curated. I couldn't find it. Since then I knew that I have to order the storage of the studio. Now I'm doing it finally - and I found the work. However, the job will take many more days. I've been packing works that I guess nobody will see never, at least before I die. I'm also throwing things away - I had an impressive collection of card board boxes, pieces of bubble wrap and, for my surprise, dead mice.

Drawing = thinking. Painting = working. It's a long time since I was seriously drawing but finally this week I've dedicated few days for my favorite activity, the solid base of my whole practice.

If I don't draw, my brain rusts. In the past year, I developed a painting technique that is similar to drawing but still a large scale painting is always a big project - I need to order the wooden structure from the carpenter, buy canvas and paint, and the work takes normally several weeks. The long process makes me to choose the content carefully, there's no margin for errors. Drawing is fast and furious, an A4 piece needs approximately one day of labor and I don't have to abandon any ideas. If a drawing results really bad, I throw it to the rubbish bin.

Drawing is not only using pencils and watercolors. When I draw, I read. Yesterday my drawings made me to study Meiji restoration and Japanese history, investigate the cultural background of twerking and read poetry of Antonio Machado.

And the very best thing in drawing during the summer living in Spain - I can do it in my air conditioned home and I don't have t suffer in my sauna-studio. 

On Saturdays I listen to the Spanish Top 40 hit list while I wash my car. According to Umberto Eco the lists are the origin of culture. With them we try to make infinity comprehensible.

My mom gave me for my birthday Mia Kankimäki's wonderful book Things That Make One's Heart Beat Faster (Finnish, not translated). The author writes her own lists in the style of the Japanese Heian period poet and court lady Sei Shonagon.

MY FAVORITE BOOKS WITH LISTS

Russel Ash: The Top 10 of Everything

Jorge Luis Borges: The Analytical Language of John Wilkins (in the collection Otras Inquisiciones)

Umberto Eco: The Infinity of Lists

Erlend Loe: Naiv. Super.

Georges Perec: Species of Spaces and Other Pieces

Sei Shonagon: The Pillow Book

Artemy Troitski: Russia's Last Diversant (Finnish, not translated. Original texts from the author's blog)

Shaun Usher: Lists of Note

David Wallechinsky, Irving Wallace, Amy Wallace: Book of Lists