stricken by reality

I have too much to do right now, I'll be back in one week ... (above test prints. Printing next week)

last year; continued progress pictures

after making the painting more distinct and warmer with red, it was time to add something that would give more of a "mirage" feeling (the title of the painting)

... gold! Tried it out with pieces of gold painted paper

... yes, could work.

used a transparent plastic for sketching the mask before spray painting. Made a mental note about how much I liked that plastic look. Static electricity made the plastic stick to the painting and I decided to keep it as the mask instead of transferring the shape to a paper mask  -  a decision that made a huge difference for the next step ... to be continued

sometimes it takes almost a year ...

Before I post more photos of my Merry-go-round signs I think I should explain what lies behind; my thoughts and intentions - and the long road (often uphill) I walked to get there ... I've now got so much material (art) I will never use, because I felt that was not really what I was after. At least I'm not afraid of experimenting and really giving things a try!

Last autumn I really felt I wanted to get rid of the need to frame my watercolors, to get away from that "picture on the wall" feeling.  So I tried painting watercolour on specially prepared canvas. I also wanted to work with a kind of repetition, the "same same but different" you see in models' faces, in stereotypical beauty, in advertising. It's a canon, but also superficial. I was thinking biiiiig, I was thinking billboard. Maybe rising the pointless and superficial to an almost religious level? Overwhelm? Superimpose? Instead of minimum go fro maximum?

These are work in progress images I never showed from October-November last year.

my starting point and "inspiration" - a bikini add from H&M. I was only interested in the faces though preparatory sketch in real size (2,4 meters broad or something like that) mounted the sketch on the stretched and prepared canvas and made some changes (skipped the hand) first blue/red sketch (I never sketch with pencil). Still nothing "new" ... but it is coming ...to be continued

today: screenshot

These days it is mostly Photoshop and InDesign for me  - and decisions decisions. When you want something to be really good you can not take any short cuts! Or rush it...

in darkness

more to come ...

grey

Today I had a screen printing demo with Göteborg Konsthall and we printed in grey, not in silver. And today I suddenly realized that it's the middle of October, that it's autumn dark -  and that I have already started planning for January in my calendar.  I suspect there is a creature stealing some of my time, like socks from the laundry machine ...

Merry-go-round I

Did I ever tell the title of the laughing turning sign, that I completed in June? It's "Merry-go-round I" (there will be three merry-go-rounds). And here is a proper photo of it taken the other day. I have another one too - soon I'll share what that one looks like in a dark room.

... 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)