Sabina Hahn's Uploads

I crawled right up to Daddy's modelling mirror which stands on the floor by the box of plaster. A great big black creature was creeping towards me. I got cautious and stood still. The creature was shapeless. It was one of those creatures that can spread itself out and creep under the furniture or turn into a black fog that gets thicker and thicker until it is quite sticky and gets all around you and fastens itself to you. I let the creature get a little closer and put its hand out. The hand crept along the floor and then was pulled back suddenly. The creature came even closer. Suddenly it got scared and ran quickly in an oblique direction and stopped still. Now I was scared. - Sculptor's Daughter by Tove Jansson #dailydrawing #tovejansson

What a wonderful Kirkus review! (Paired here with my favorite improper contraction.) "A thoughtful look at life, in all its beauty and strangeness. ... This delightfully deadpan musing on life urges compassion for others. Howden’s straightforward text is on the philosophical side, though also rooted in the absurd. Hahn’s spare black graphite pencil watercolor, mostly set against a white background, are imbued with humor and empathy for the pickle, with the foodstuff’s expressive eyes conveying many emotions at once. " https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/sarah-howden/the-wise-pickle/ THE WISE PICKLE by Sarah Howden ; illustrated by Sabina Hahn RELEASE DATE: June 23, 2026

I got fed up with her because she wasn't happy. I don't like it when people find life difficult. It gives me a bad conscience and then I get angry and begin to feel that they might as well go somewhere else. - Sculptor's Daughter by Tove Jansson #dailydrawing #tovejansson

Last spring we had nineteen canaries. I must tell you, once and for all, that canaries are very virulent birds. It starts with the mother bird and the father bird. They have babies. And before the babies get a single feather on their bodies they have to leave home and the father bird sings again and the mother bird lays new eggs. That's how things go with canaries. - Sculptor's Daughter by Tove Jansson #dailydrawing #tovejansson

DADDY LOVES ALL ANIMALS BECAUSE THEY don't contradict him. He likes ones that are furry best. And they love him, too, because they know that they can do just as they like. But it's quite a different matter with Females. If you make statues of them they become women but as long as they remain Females things are difficult. They can't even pose properly and they talk much too much. - Sculptor's Daughter by Tove Jansson #dailydrawing #tovejansson

I went on ahead to the house, crying all the way, but now it was mostly to make an impression. Daddy followed and lit a candle because all the lamps were in the theater. He showed me the pike he had caught. It's a lovely one, I said, because one must always say something when someone catches a fish. And then it was too late to cry any more. I put on my ordinary clothes again and we had a cup of tea together. Sculptor's daughter by Tove Jansson. #dailydrawing #toveJansson

I stared and stared at her until I had stared her into little pieces and I thought, you're big and scraggy like a carthorse and nobody can hunt for you in the grass and you couldn't hide anywhere because you can be seen the whole time and you can't surprise anybody and make them feel good! You have completely spoilt our games for no reason because you can't play games yourself! O alas and alack! No one wants your presents. He doesn't want them! You're nobody's surprise, and you can't understand because you're not an artist! And so I went a little closer and humiliated her by saying the most terrible thing of all : amateur! You're an amateur! You're not a real artist! - Sculptor's Daughter by Tove Jansson #dailydrawing #tovejansson

One year towards autumn a geologist was living in the pilots' hut. He couldn't speak either Finnish ow Swedish, he just smiled and flashed his black eyes. He would look at people and immediately make them feel how surprised and happy he was to meet them at last and then he just walked on with his hammer and hammered a rock here and there. His name was Jeremiah. - Sculptor's Daughter by Tove Jansson #dailydrawing #tovejansson

It got cold very quickly and the fog was there, moving thickly around us, shutting us in on all sides. The smooth swell rolled out of the fog, crawled under the raft with a swallowing movement and rolled back into the fog the other side. .... Albert picked it up by the neck and looked at it, and it began to screech and flap one wing. Let it go! I shouted. Everything looked so terrifying with the fog and the black water and the bird creeping around and screaming that I was beside myself and said: give it to me, I'll hold it in my lap, we must make it well again. - Sculptor's Daughter by Tove Jansson #dailydrawing #tovejansson

It was slow work paddling but we got going We reached deep water, but that was all right because we had both nearly learned to swim. After a while we entered the sound near Red Rock. - Sculptor's Daughter by Tove Jansson #dailydrawing #tovejansson

Happy New Year! May this year of a Red Fire Horse be a galloping great fun!

I went to the beach again and said: fish suffer just as much as people do. - Sculptor's Daughter by Tove Jansson #dailydrawing #tovejansson

I turned the key and waited. After a while the door opened of its own accord, very slowly as if someone inside the wardrobe was forcing it. And then the black tulle skirt poured forth and the door stood still. I did the same thing several times. Each time Mummy's tulle skirt opened out as it is was alive. - Sculptor's Daughter by Tove Jansson #dailydrawing #tovejansson

Once I found a boat made of bark that was called Darling. It was very beautifully made with a hold, rudders, a wheelhouse and cloth sails. But Daddy said I didn't have to find out who owned it. Maybe nothing is so important provided that it is small enough. At least that's what I think. - Sculptor's Daughter by Tove Jansson #dailydrawing #tovejansson

If a thousand girls walked past under this tree not one of them would have the faintest idea that I am sitting up there. The pine cones are green and very hard. My feet are brown. And the wind is blowing right through my hair. Sculptor's daughter by Tove Jansson. #dailydrawing #toveJansson

Fanny was sitting on the fence singing the great rain song. Sculptor's daughter by Tove Jansson. #sculptorsdaughter #toveJansson #dailydrawing

To draw a forest so it's big enough you don't include the tops of the trees or any sky. Just very thick tree-trunks growing absolutely straight. ... In a proper painting of a forest everything is roughly the same colour, the moss, the tree-trunks and the branches of the fir trees, everything is soft and solemn, half-way between grey and brown and green but very little green. If you want you can add a princess, for example. She is always white and very tiny and has long yellow hair. Sculptor's daughter by Tove Jansson.

The house is grey, the sky and the sea are grey, and the field is grey with dew. It's four o'clock in the morning and I have saved three important hours which can be counted as extra. Or perhaps three and a half. I have learned to tell the time, although I'm not yet quite sure about the minutes. Sculptor's daughter by Tove Jansson. #dailydrawing #toveJansson

Now I had to make up my mind. And that's an awful thing to have to do. Sculptor's Daughter by Tove Jansson. #dailydrawing #toveJansson

All men have parties and are pals who never let each other down. A pal can say terrible things which are forgotten the next day. A pal never forgives, he just forgets and a woman forgives but never forgets. That's how it is. That's why women aren't allowed to have parties. Being forgiven is very unpleasant. - Sculptor's Daughter by Tove Jansson #dailydrawing #tovejansson

In the end I began to feel weak at the knees and then I knew that soon it would be too late, in a few seconds it would be too late, so I let it fall into the gutter and began rolling very quickly and without looking up. I kept my nose just above the top of the stone so that the room I had hidden us in would be as tiny as possible and I heard very clearly how all the cars stopped and were angry but I drew a line between them and me and just went on rolling and rolling. You can close your mind to things if something is important enough. It works very well. You make yourself very small, shut your eyes tight and say a big word over and over again until you're safe. - Sculptor's Daughter by Tove Jansson #dailydrawing #tovejansson