This was the worst of the duck images! I felt slightly snow blind after finishing, and we haven’t even had the first snow in Helsinki yet. Somehow, the left part (both snow and sky) was easier than the right side. I had about a third of the pieces left when I sorted them by shape, but the shades of white helped a bit even after that. Also, the cut was excellent, with some distinct shapes that helped a lot. It was less painful than I expected it to be.

The duck in this painting looks happy and not at all cranky, and I also think it’s a female duck (has hair in a bun and wears a skirt).

One final thing, the title. In Finnish, it’s an elaborate word game, because it has two different meanings. The Finnish title is “(Läpi) ajan, tulen ja jään”, and that can be translated either as “I drive (through), I come and I stay”, or as “Through time, fire and ice”. For the second meaning, you really need that word in parentheses.

Back to the Stenvall ducks! This is one of the very few Stenvall paintings with only an English title (most of them have Finnish titles as well). The image shows a cranky duck holding up a candle against a city with no lights. The sofa is covered with what looks like a combination of the US and Finnish flags – the stars in the US flag have been replaced with a Finnish flag. The painting is from 2003, which means this must be a reference to the Northeast blackout of 2003 – surely anything else would be too much of a coincidence. But I have no idea what – if anything – the artist is trying to say, and I also don’t understand what Finland has to do with the blackout.

This was the second time I’ve done this puzzle, I did it in 2017, and it was the first Stenvall puzzle I did. It was a few years later when I decided to collect all the puzzles. The puzzle quality is good, although the fit is quite loose, which I know many people dislike, but I don’t mind. No false fits, though!

I finished it! Most of the time I prefer to do much easier puzzles, but I actually really enjoyed this. While the large majority of pieces were of the basic two tabs opposite-type, the actual cut was distinct enough to be a big help. There were tabs and holes of all sizes and shapes, and if there hadn’t been, this puzzle would not have been very enjoyable, brute-forcing 700 pieces isn’t much fun. Also, the pieces only fit where they belong, and many times I didn’t even need two points of contact. Of course, I was also prepared for it to be pretty slow, but still I was surprised how much I enjoyed this. There was a lot of fist-pumping and triumphant shouts while I was doing it 🙂 Next, I’m definitely going to do something easy and colourful!

Another duck puzzle from the Kaj Stenvall collection. This is actually one of my favourite images in the series, and it also turned out to be a very entertaining puzzle. The quality was good, although some of the pieces were a bit worn. I could definitely tell that the puzzles has been completed a couple of times before. I was actually happy to find it complete, the box was badly scratched and there were some crayon markings as well, but I guess the child didn’t get into the box, because the pieces were not damaged, and also all there.

More ducks by Kaj Stenvall, this time sleeping in a boat. The fit was much tighter than the previous puzzle, but although this was factory sealed, many pieces had some lift, and the overall feel was not good. You really never know what you get with Tactic.

Another Kaj Stenvall collection puzzle. This one was fairly easy, and the quality was otherwise OK, but the fit was very loose. I didn’t really mind, I really enjoyed this!

A puzzle from my now complete Kaj Stenvall-collection. All of these puzzles have titles in English and Finnish, and often they are very strange, especially the English translations. This title contains the Finnish word “kolmio” that can mean either “triangle” or “three-room flat”. Doesn’t quite work in English 🙂

Anyway, the puzzle was really excellent quality for Tactic (sadly, the newer puzzles are much worse), and that was a good thing, because with a less precise cut this would have been really difficult. As it was, I really enjoyed it.

The duck is just twiddling his thumbs, I guess, but to me it looks like he’s looking at a non-existent smart phone 🙂 The painting is from 2006, and while mobile phones were widespread, I think they were still mostly just phones with no internet access, and you wouldn’t sit and look at it the way we all do now.