2013

The year is coming to an end and it's time for some reflection. It's been a good year. I've been involved in two book releases that I'm very proud of: Jordens försvunna skatter and Fille & Gonkan hos sjörövarna.  I'll post some excerpts below but there's more examples at my portfolio over here.

Business was quite slow in the summer but a generous grant from The Swedish Author's Fund not only gave me opportunity to spend some time with The Tree and Cloud Challenge I've been posting about, but maybe more importantly, a chance to explore what kind of books I want to make myself in the future. I don't want to kill these ideas by talking to much about them but I'll post some half-finished drawings just to put some pressure on myself. I mean; if I state that I'm working on some book projects here I'll have to finish them too, right?

2013 also saw the release of Mattias IA Eklundh's album The Smorgasboard which I did the cover illustration for.

The 3D-printing workshop at KKV was another great thing and I immediately applied (and was accepted) for membership in the Electronics Workshop. The shop is in fact expanding with some very interesting new equipment and hopefully I'll get the chance to work there this coming year.

From Jordens försvunna skatter (Hidden treasures of the world):

From Fille & Gonkan hos sjörövarna (F & G with the pirates):

From my own book projects:

 From The Smorgasboard album cover:

The Flugelbone

I went and bought me a flugelbone the other day. It's a valve trombone built like a trumpet. Also called marching trombone. I got tired of all the unintentional microtonality that I produced on the regular slide trombone. Now, with the valves, I only have to learn to push the right buttons. Piece of cake! (...not.)

One nice thing about brass instrument though is how drawable they are. None of these three have the right proportions but I still think they're quite ok. And I had a great time drawing them.

Robo-Santa in space

Here's my contribution to Rådhusets Julkalender 2013.  "Viva Claus Vegas". Twenty-four Swedish childrens book illustrators were invited. One new revealed each day until christmas eve - five more to go. Check it out here.

More oil pastel

 

 

 

Tree and cloud studies - oil pastel

Since I really don't consider myself a painter I thought I'd try the tree challenge with a medium closer to drawing.

I've been having a box with oil pastels in a drawer for as long as I can remember. It's a medium I've never been comfortable with but I've kept them because I like Italian artist Lorenzo Mattotti so much. Now I thought maybe the scale had something to do with why I've had problems so I made these drawings quite large. 50 x 70 cm and thereabout.

Now I find it very inspiring and the drawing with color method fits the task quite good.

I expanded the tree challenge to include clouds which have a similar bubbly, broccoli-like visual texture.

More tree studies

Here's some more tree studies. Acrylic on board - approx. 10 x 15 cm.

Tree studies

Spent some time this summer studying trees. I adore the background paintings in Miyazaki's movies and I wanted it to look like that. Hard task and I didn't really succeed but my attempts went from quite crappy to at least semi-ok so - the tree-challenge continues...

Ps. I left the crappy ones out when I picked the examples below.

3D-print Workshop

Workshop in 3D-modeling and printing at Artists’ Collective Workshop of Gothenburg (KKV Göteborg) this past weekend. A truly inspiring experience.

The learning curve in 3D-modeling is steep to say the least. A lot of trial and error and you don't have much use for earlier experience in for example Photoshop or Illustrator. But the final result, the DIY-philosophy (all software used is open source and free, the printer is partly built at KKV) and the feeling of being in a Mission Impossible-movie is awesome.

Thanks Geraldine, Linus, fellow participants and KKV!

Robot book - voted third!

Tänk Robot! (Think Robot!) from author Peter Ekberg and illustrated by me was voted third best non fiction book of 2011 by the Book Jury. Thank you all young readers who voted!

More illustration samples at the the book section of my web-portfolio.

Freak Guitar II

Here's the man himself with a familiar looking flag.
I strongly suggest all who read this to look into this man's crazy and wonderful world of music. Start at his website here.

As I've mentioned before in this blog - the thing with the wooden objects I make, kind of started with the illustration I did for IA's first solo album and the wooden replica I did from that. Normally it's the things you do as  a "free" artist that rubs of into your professional work - this time it was the other way around.

Freak Guitar - The Smorgasbord

My good buddy Mattias IA Eklundh is an amazing musician and guitar player with an instantly recognizable style. This summer I had the great pleasure of doing the artwork for his new solo album Freak Guitar - The Smorgasboard. This double disc CD is now released worldwide by Steve Vai's record label Favored Nations.

Samples of my artwork for his previous albums can be found here and here.

A Camera

My good friend Patrik had his 50th birthday the other day. He's a photographer so I made him a camera.

Patrik has a great and very informative website (in Swedish). Check it out here.