... busy

photos by Hector Mora

... and then I have hundreds of photos to go through

photo session, day 1

Taking photos of more or less all my work made since September last year, with the help of the best person in the world (thank you, my love). Quite a few paintings - and most of them in tricky red, pink or yellowish tones. But thanks to the colour card we are getting there!

It's hard to grasp the size of my paintings without any reference, but with me in front you get the idea. photos of me with my paintings by Hector Mora

characters for my children's book?

For two days I've managed (kind of) to block out any thoughts about my paintings and my work in the studio - and concentrated on the children's book. I imagined I entered another mental room, which helped. It turned out to be hard writing the script without knowing what my characters looked like. Or, rather; I wrote a script according to our instructions for the exercise, but even though I thought the story was good - I didn't at all feel like illustrating it. It was a story for someone else to illustrate! So I'm taking another approach - looking for my characters before getting serious about the text. (I have an idea about the story though)

laughter smells like ...

Laughter smells like pink chewing gum and carnival.  Laughter stinks of blood and raspberries. This autumn I'm also taking a course in "Illustrated Children Books". A major part of the course is about writing better texts. We've been doing exercises in intuitive writing that has helped me to write about my laughters (that is my art) in several ways. What laughters smells like, sounds like, metaphors etc. I've been filling paper after paper with text - without any judgments or self censor. Analyses is to come later...   But I am supposed to write a text for an illustrated Children Book - not my artist statement. So this week I'm sitting down, at home, trying to focus on that task instead. I might need my hat.

the best way to clean your mind

looking at books

365 by Jesper Waldersten

really liked  the handwritten title - screen printed in white

linside it had this contrast of "dirty looking matt paper" with handwritten text and shiny photos of the art

here I liked the details; the photo printed on the border and the spotty cover I've been thinking a lot about how books look lately - the overall design and little details. The book fair today was great for looking. Soon I'll make my own book. I'm excited about it ... And then I had a shrimp sandwich with Camilla. You can not only work and work - can you?

Gold?

Today I made some test prints with silver and gold screen printing inks. But as always with metallic colours on paper it's hard to really get it to look like gold and silver ... And then the result depends a lot on the paper. I'll make a screen printing demonstration in two weeks and they want to screen print in silver, but I'm advising against it - it can become such a disappointment (I have no control over the paper as they are bringing it)

Tomorrow I'll go to the book fair here in Gothenburg. Camilla will be there and I hope to see a lot of good books!

an independent course in art for public spaces (in Swedish only) at HDK (the design school)

more slicing

smaller work

"Shuffle" approx  36 x 41 cm I've managed to work in a bit smaller format these days (my trick is to paint on several at the same time - so it feels like a big one).

concentrated work in the studio

other artists' studios: Helsinki studios (link via Fine little Day)

more focus

Today in the studio I made myself this Focus-hat. It's great for concentration and stops all wandering thoughts and those wild creative impulses that could lure you to leave the set path. I also make this hat to order.

cut 'n play

and when I turned left ...

... there was a girl with long dark hair and a camera. (I'm blond)

split

But I am not split. I'm just focus focus

focus focus focus

I'm focusing on finishing some art pieces these three weeks. Then it's time for photographing for my book ... I'm aiming for printing it in the beginning of October!
(not, not , not to think about anything else, not even the fun course "illustrated children books" I started taking last week)

back in the studio again

the sprout in my zink had died in my absence ...

playful plant experiment

same same but different; 

same colours on white and dark background

different grey tones in layers

(for my collection of pedagogical print examples - and maybe something else?)

more from my students' exhibition

Diana Noriega Astrid Linnea Andersson

Salla Johanna Kirjalainen

Josef Jägnefält

Hannele Fernström

Jacob Nyberg

Exhibition X

Friday night we had the opening - and the only 3 hours out-door exhibition - presenting the results from the summer course I've been teaching ("Big format screen printing and its spatial possibilities"). Below some glimpses from the exhibition and the fantastic weather conditions. We had sun, we had rainbows, we had glittering heavy rain in sun light, we had sun set sun coloring the exhibition in warm yellow, we had dramatic spotlights created by the sun ... (we had a roof ...) on the left (white paper) work by Anna-Lotta Ahlmén, on the right (fabric) by Emilia Persdotter

the setting sun working as a spotlight on part of Josef Jägnefelt's art piece

in the warm light from the setting sun (Emilia Persdotter)

in sun set and rain; work by Jacob Nyberg (details) Tomorrow I'll show you some more photos from the Exhibition

a little experiment

in the dark room before exposure. (I had picked a lot of wild flowers and weed on my way to KKV)

Today - before we test hanged my student's exhibition - I managed to get the time to prepare a screen printing frame for a playful print experiment. Hopefully I'll get the time to test print it tomorrow before lunch. Then we have the exhibition - and it will be great!