I have been incubating this image in my head ever since I returned from my trip to Asia. I was inspired by the religious Hindu art I saw in Singapore and Malaysia to draw a deity in the same style. Now, I should mention that while it is not unusual for me to “get inspired” by various things, this is one of those things that just sort of stuck in my head for the longest time. The problem I had was that while it was a very strong feeling of inspiration I felt, the image in my head was not forming into anything tangible. But then about a week ago I started sketching on a picture of Ganesha and at first I was not very happy with it as I felt I was reinventing the wheel so to speak by drawing an image of a deity that has been depicted thousands of times in the past in every conceivable style and pose. And that is when I realized that what I wanted to create was not a traditional Hindu deity, but one of my own imagination. And once I had come to that realization, the image of a Hindu/Buddhist deity with the head of a elk was not very far away.

I wanted to tie the image to my own Finnish roots so the elk seemed like a perfect fit seeing that a special kind of elk, The Elk of “Hiisi” (Finnish: Hiiden Hirvi), is featured in the tales of the national epic Kalevala. Hiiden Hirvi was a powerful elk created by the forest deities known as “Hiisi” from the life essence of the forest. “Hiisi” literally means “a sacred place of worship” but is also the name of the spirits that live in these places. In the story the hero has to capture this elk alive to prove himself worthy to marry the daughter of Louhi (Mistress of Pohjola).

I used my sketch of Ganesha as a base and kept the dancing pose but added a couple extra arms (Hiiden Hirvi is said to have six legs, I figure six arms is just as good) and invented my own Mudras for the hands. I replaced Ganesha’s famous broken tusk with a broken piece of horn and replaced Ganeshas favourite fruit with a Karelian pasty which I think is the perfect Finnish-Asian-cross-over-food (rye bread with rice filling). Once I had these key features everything else just fell into place naturally.

Karelian pasty! :D Om nom nom nom!

You might be thinking that it doesn’t look much like an elk/moose though (besides the horns). This is due to that special ingredient that I like to add to my art which I call “The WHAT THE F*CK Component”. This is also the reason why I can’t draw a normal bellybutton or cover up man-boobs (what can I say? I love drawing nipples). I mean why is he crying and smiling at the same time? I have no idea. I just flow with the ideas I get in my head. In general, what my imagination comes up with is very dependent on what music I am listening to when I paint. When it comes to the weirdness here, the album Silent Shout by The Knife comes to mind (Spotify playlist). I like listening to this when I paint late at night, and just immense myself in the dark black echoes from the deep forests of the North.