material and colours

THE MATERIAL
I suggested enamel as the material for the art pieces for the entrances as it's a durable material, but also beautiful. I use a special enamel screen printing colour to transfer my sketches to the enamels (see how here and then here). The method of screen printing allows some of the difference in tonality to be transferred from the original ink drawings.

THE COLOURS
As every animal should be repeated 4 times (or 2) I suggested using different colour tones to differentiate the entrances in the same building from each other. As the buildings are subtle in colour I decided not to use too vivid colours. Darker tones would make the animals easier to see - a yellow test confirmed that. I made colour tests on tiles as they are so much cheaper than enamels, but can also take the enamel screen printing colour. What is tricky with enamel screen printing colour is that you never know how a mixture will turn out after being in the kiln - what looked like orange and green ... came out as almost the same ochre tone!

As the best choices of colour I suggested grey, subtle greyish blue, reddish brown and a soft military green - but of course gave more options. [I've found that it is always better to let the clients have at least some choices - to make them feel in charge of the project.]

how it should be

Wednesday night I presented the complete sketches for the Tenant Owners' Association's board. They seemed pleased, but will think about it until their next meeting in a month (things are not moving fast here...). They have to take some decisions about which animals they want and what colours. If they decide to go ahead with the commission I'll execute the enamels in April (if you wonder: I do get paid for the suggestion even if they wouldn't continue with the next step and order the 38 enamels).

Before the meeting I tried the enamel with the fox where it is supposed to be at an entrance. What do you think?

fox and sitting ducks

My first Tuesday 2010 was good. No distracting sun light, concentrated work at KKV (for this commission), a good long bike ride on snowy streets ... and the two men in my life welcoming me home with kisses at night.

How was your first Tuesday?

more about commissions

Every night when I come home I see this series of enamels I made for my own tenant owner's association. And I am pleased with them - they are welcoming, they help orientation - and they look kind of nice.

There are commissions and commissions. If you get to do bigger jobs for municipals/regions/the state etc you get more artistic liberty, but you will anyway always have to take into account where it will be placed and who will see it. Then there are other jobs where it is more about creating complements to the architecture or adding some form of decoration. In the latter case it is very often art with a specific function and has to please the majority of people seeing the art piece.

When it comes to making art for a tenant owner's organization it is always the latter. They are "public decorations", they are supposed to beautify - like flowers in the garden... I see it as a challenge to make something that's pretty good under the circumstances. Of course a series of road killed wild animals for all the entrances in a building would contain much more than just "decoration", but it's not what people want to see every day coming home from work. And the kids would be sad to see dead animals...

Sometimes I might be whining about wanting to work on my own art, but I am actually happy not having to compromise there...I can compromise with the wild animals instead!

a closer look

...as some of you requested a closer look of course you'll get it! (size 50 x 40 cm) I will exhibit these enamels together with my paintings. They will work as a break from my intense paintings ... a pause to clean your senses, so to say... But I will have to be patient ... my next separate exhibition isn't until next year (but then I'll have two!). shannon freshwater through design for mankind AND read this about plagiarism at Book By Its Cover (came to my attention thanks to Eddy & Edwina). That some people have the nerve!

finally enamel

More than half a year ago I was working on this series of drawings - "en vogue". Today four of them finally found their final form as enamels. (see enamel process). I wanted them to look so effortless, like por supuesto (of course), but they sure weren't effortless to make. To screenprint on slightly convex and shiny enamels made me curse. And start over - and start over. I finally figured out that I needed three different squeegees and to print in three complicated movements after each other (like martial art). But when they came out of the kiln I sure was happy!

Maybe I had problems concentrating today because I wished I were somewhere else?
- Thereza is opening her show in London
- Camilla and Karin are showing their latest collaboration at manos outside Stockholm

radio interview

For you who live in the area of Gothenburg: tomorrow Friday the student radio K103 (103,1 MHz) will interview me at 14:30 about my exhibit.

my Thursday

I was so busy working with my enamels that I got surprised seeing it had been snowing for some time. It is still snowing. But shouldn't spring come now?

putting on a mask

putting on a mask changes things. Do you ever put on a mask?

the triptych

so: the final result (click on the image to see it bigger). Each enamel is 40 x 50 cm


I also made three smaller versions with strong background colours (the other two were in yesterday's post), but they kind of loose the original idea and the subtle details.

a hard day's work

Sunday. I got up at 6 in the morning. It was a rainy day. I drove to KKV. My grandma's old radio played me a sad tune. I didn't make any masterpiece.

Maybe tomorrow?

masked and with cape

enamel triptych Masked

enamel triptych with Cape

I finished these two triptychs last week (both Zorros on the left were the final additions). I would have loved to go and see the exhibit Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy at Metropolitan.

2008 is the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue and the European Commission therefore launches the competition Cultures on my street.

black and white

black and white enamel (20 x 15 cm) - made last Monday, sold on Thursday. That's the way it should be!

anders kappel

two tiles

I made these two tiles on Monday. I'll have them for sale on my Open Studio on Friday and Saturday. You are very welcome!
Smedjegatan 5 (Gotenburg), entrance 5, top floor.
Friday 16:30-18:30
Saturday 13:00-15:00

Otherwise I'm just seeing white white white these days - I'm painting all the walls in the studio WHITE!

mickey jackson

if Friday was a day of total flow with the enamels - Monday was not: the tourniquet that opens and closes the enamel oven just died. Luckily Ingmar - the handy man at KKV - managed to borrow one from another workshop and install it with my oven. And I found out that it's only enamel screen colour that turns out nice (not the normal enamel powder) on tiles and that tiles should just be in the enamel oven once...

klara kristalova
roland persson
anna nordquist andersson

enamel on tiles

Next Friday and Saturday I'm going to have Open Studio (Friday 16:30-18:30, Saturday 13:00-15:00). Part of my preparations for next week is to finish some enamels as complement to the ones I made in November last year. I spent a day of total flow at KKV today (yes, yes!) working on them. I also screenprinted with enamel colour on tiles. As it is much cheaper I felt free to experiment more.

by day, by night

The enamels are up on the walls!

never ending story: final presentation(?)

Tonight, just before 20:00, I gave my final presentation (?) of the enamels for the eleven entrances. It was at the tenant-owner's association's annual assembly - and (most) people seemed pleased with my work. I showed a serie of photos of the looooong process and improvised mostly in my "speech" (even though I had prepared some notes which I didn't follow). I even got some laughters.

Once upon a time - not long ago - I used to get really nervous by doing these things, but not any longer. It just disappeared. Magically. I'm not scared of making a fool of myself any longer - it doesn't matter - and because of that everything runs smoothly. And if I would forget what to say, or make a mistake - it's on me. Most people are nice - if you smile and show you're human they will understand. I still - of course - might feel afterwards that I could have done it better. But that is just to remember for the next time!

If you wonder: No. the enamels are still not mounted. Just one for testing lamps and montage. I will show you what it looks like when it's finally done.

enamel: final steps

fitting and screening text

cooling on grid on the floor after being in the oven

after additional orange detail and text: ready!

enamel: step 4 and 5

Step 4: scraping to get sharp contours or lines.

Step 5: into oven 820 degrees Celsius (approx 10 minutes).

Coming out steaming hot - and shiny.

Valentine Lunch