shoelaces

Another creature for my Children's book project. I'm just making a lot of different figures and I'll let the stories come later. Anyhow it feels so nice and unpretentious. It doesn't have to become something - or anything. Just fun!

Really early tomorrow morning I'm going to drive to a town called Lidköping where I will teach screenprinting on paper (at Formakademin) for three days. I don't know if I will be blogging or not - it all depends on the circumstances.

Dark and Victorian: sara bevan
Indian and Great Story and Project: nek chand

fear and trembling

I've been spending some time with my bookkeeping. And tax declaration. They've put a little flower on the brochure from the tax office - like saying; it's nice and fun.

I've been sitting with hundreds of receipts (in a folder), my calculator and a bottom line report that doesn't make sense. (I make my own bookkeeping) I have been feeling like Amélie in Fear and trembling (movie based on Stupeur et tremblements by Amélie Nothomb). This Amelie has managed to get a job as an interpreter in a company in Japan. As she is not respecting the protocol or hierarchy in Japan - and also acts impulsively - she is soon downgraded to carrying out the most unnecessary tasks; like control counting some expense accounts. This has nothing to do with why she was originally hired. She is no good with numbers. She works night and day - and gets different results from the calculator every time - for the same calculation. There are some really good scenes when she stays all nights in the office with her face closer and closer to the calculator and to the papers with the numbers. She feels totally and utterly confused.

Maybe that's why they put the flower there - like saying: don't worry?

painting more

not many words these days - I'm working on my bookkeeping (trying to grasp it) and my tax declaration all nights. Me not like.

painting

magic monday

birthday cake for my love

breakfast in bed

playing in the sun in the park

seagull and cherry blossomsketching small children being very confused by the sun and the warmth

by day, by night

The enamels are up on the walls!

one more thing

I almost forgot: Bibbi is opening her exhibit tomorrow - and I'm going. I've never seen her before (just read the blog) so it's going to be exciting!

even though I've been teaching full time this week I managed to make my own prints (in my lunch break) - experimental printing thinking about my children's book idea.

small world (göteborg): namedropping

All this week I've been giving a screenprinting workshop (at KKV) to students from Dômen Art School. Mia Frankedal taught the first week, but she had a marble workshop in Portugal this week - so I got the chance to show what I can.

The students at Dômen had had four different workshops to choose in between: video, performance, screenprinting and model building. Today we presented the results. At the photo Andreas Korsar is introducing what the students achieved at his model building workshop (it might sound a bit boring - but the resulting art pieces and photos were amazing). I knew of his drawings before, and of some animations. Andreas Korsar at you tube: music video for the Knife. Here you can learn more about the Knife. He's also worked togeteher with Andreas Nilsson who studied with me once at Hovedskou Art School (nowadays Göteborg Art School). Fredrik Gunve gave the performance class. Turned out that he knew David Crawford who studied with me at Art & Technology. And: Johannes Nyholm - who had the video workshop - was actually teaching the first term back then. Small world (Göteborg) - Johannes Nyholm has also worked with Andreas Nilsson on a video for the Knife.

Dômen Art School is having Open House tomorrow. I'll also try to see Henrik Persson's exhibit at Stena salen at the Art Museum. (Henrik is teaching at Dômen - a friend of the two Andreas mentioned above, studied with me - and totally disliked me). (It's like a web all these people ...)

Have a nice weekend!

two coins

If you have only two coins
buy a bread for one
and a flower for the other
the bread for the stomach
the flower for the soul
(Chinese saying - or at least that's what I've been told)

I picked these on my way home today and saved my second coin for something else.

April sun

mobile swap: mine arrived

Last week - just like a surprise gift - I (hm... finally) received my mobile for the swap in the post. I had almost forgotten about it. At the moment it's hanging in my kitchen window looking great with my geranium. The lovely lady who made it is Katy Shields. You can see more photos of her mobile for me - here. Thanks Katy - I love it! (And this was mine for someone else)

midnight sketching

yes, I'm doing it again.

I set some rules for the game:
- base it on my 3 year old son's leftovers (paintings, drawings, cutouts)
- make at least two/night
- show my co-artist the result in the morning to see his reactions (he keeps showing me the empty pages of the sketchbook implying that I'm slow) and learn from them. (he didn't like this one - maybe it's too hard to read?)

workaholic

On Tuesday night I read about the project the healing sketch at Marie-Louise Sundqvist's blog. There is a flickr group to join for it. It's about committing to make one sketch per day and the fundamental principle is to play and have fun!

But this is no good for me. I couldn't resist and sat down a whole hour after midnight and made many drawings in a new sketchbook. And last night again, same time. And now I feel the urge again. I joked with myself about being a workaholic - but I truly might be one. Here you can check if you are (I said yes to all questions except 13 and 14! 10 is not true any longer, but were once).

I'm thinking the sketches might be for my children's book.

mixing

confession: I'm tempted to start working on a book for children.

screenprinting made easy: 2

Also for my screenprinting class: Sometimes you can just use what you find. Here I picked some leaves on my way to KKV and simply put them directly onto the screenframe and exposed the photo emulsion. I then printed the leaves in one go, letting different colours mix in the printing process.

screenprinting made easy: 1

For my class next week, and last week of April, I prepared these simple screenprints. Instead of transferring something to a plastic film through computer and copy machine/printer - I simply used some shapes I had cut earlier (playing with the offspring). I taped them on to the plastic film and transferred them to the screenframe directly (using photo emulsion). To get the irregular orange background I simply taped a shape onto an unprepared screenframe ("typical screenprint" to print a colourfield like that as a base). The white shape (in the print on the right) was originally a rhino made by using a stencil directly under the screenframe while printing.

The idea with these prints is to show how you can make screenprints in a more direct way. Sometimes that can be the best way to start out so you'll understand the underlying principles. This way of working is also referring to early poster art made with silk screen: big simple shapes in strong colours.

Lately I've gotten more interested in works on paper. Georgia Russel cuts paper (no 8 - De Baudelaire au Surréalisme is my favorite) - many of them books. Caterina Crepax makes fashion inspired paper art (check opere).

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.

2 versions of Valkyrie

So - here is the result. I decided to print the Valkyrie in two versions: 15 of the first and 6 of the last. Which one do you prefer?

Next week I'll show the result of the tests I made for my screenprinting class later in April. I can already now mention there is a blue rhino involved. (is that like pink elephants?)

screenprinting session

Today I screenprinted with Eric at KKV. So nice with company - and not just any company! Camilla and Morran showed up for a coffee (nice nice) while we were still doing all the preparations (hours and hours) before starting the actual printing (30 min). It's like giving a party - the planning and preparing is essential to get a good intense party (printing). Though I didn't feel any post printing depression. Anyhow the party - sorry: printing - continues tomorrow.

All and all a very NICE day: nice sun, nice company, nice printing, nice last manga class ... and now: a glass of nice wine!

preparing for screenprinting

I'll do some screenprinting at KKV the rest of the week. This Valkyrie is a sketch for the print I'll work on. I have sketched on a Darth Vader as well, but I haven't really gotten what I wanted there - yet. So I'll better wait with that one. Besides - part of the screen session is to prepare for some classes I'll give in screenprinting on paper later in April. So I need to run some tests (and not try to print too many prints).

The Valkyrie is to be part of my Superheroes (Darth Vader too!).