Summer Vacation…

Since the post before the last one I have had the longest hiatus from posting since the blog went online. I have been working (too much) and on weekends I have prioritized (sic) nature and social life IRL. Not to mention the blasted midnight sun. Yes, it’s exotic but it has kept me from sleep what seems like countless nights in a row by now. Coming home from work I have been exhausted! Haven’t drawn anything lately. Haven’t had any dreams either. I blame the sun:

Endlessly annoying midnight sun at 01.00. Driving me mad but still pretty.

Finally, vacation. I’ll travel to a place thankfully dark at night but with a very weak internet-connection, if any. I’ll try to make an update or two, but primarily I will draw and read.

Plans for autumn include posting about several great buys I have made from Etsy. With hard work comes a bigger income. It makes me happy to be able to buy great, inspiring things from good people and I look forward to show off my finds in the blog. Eyeball post still upcoming. Lot’s of things with tentacles. Penguins. Notebooks (fountain pen friendly!). I will also finally present my grail pen, my one time lucky find, my time in the sumgai spotlight, the illustrious Edward Todd silver/BHR eyedropper, wet noodle!

When it comes to my own art I hope to be able to relax enough to make a couple of illustrated dreams, I’d like to write more about dreamwalking. I also plan to get some sketches down for the ideas I have for the Noodler’s competition. Maybe I’ll meet Pingo again. I will read a lot and relax, something I hope that all who read this also will be able to do as well.

Until 15th of July, then.

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Pattern Magic, Magic Carpet

In London at V&A I also bought the books Pattern Magic 1 and 2 (Amazon calls the first book: “the cult pattern-making book from Japan”). I’ve contemplated buying them before online, but hesitated as I don’t sew at all and have no intention of starting. I do draw, however, and fashion design is interesting and apart from that subspeciality even non-fashion-illustration figures need clothing (at least some of them). Here are the books, prettily framed by my very strange and wonderful carpet, from danish Kilroy Indbo. I found it second hand a week before moving. I swear, it stared back at me and I had to have it. It reminds me of corals, lichen and hattifatteners (hattifnattar in Swedish, from the Moomin books by Tove Jansson).

I took a photograph of the carpet and sent my mother. Fortunately, my mother has never been that conservative when it comes to interior decorating so she encouraged me to buy it. Here it is. The carpet looks practically alive here. Burrowing in your toes in it is a heady experience. And warm, it is wool, not synthetic.

It's alive!

I’d like to try my hand at fashion illustration. Hopefully integrating the above carpet and some strange pattern designs in the mix. If I do, I’ll make a pingback to this post.

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Acrylic ink orgy

Well, I have a thousand ideas on blogposts. I need to write more about London, books I’ve read and great fellow artists and artisans (note to self, look up the difference of those words) that I have found lately. I have several such posts planned and I thought I was going to write one of them today. My muse thinks differently. Apparently.

In London I bought some other colours of Daler-Rowney acrylic ink. Despite them being almost half-price in London at CASS art than in Sweden I pranced around the Islington flagship shop acting like a skint idiot, not buying stuff I actually could afford. Yes, I have a giant, monstrous neurosis about money after being a student for so many years. Maybe I should make a drawing of it? But I digress. After much unnecessary angst, I decided on the rather unusual colour combination of these: (Note my unprofessional bloggerness, not being able to arrange the bottles prettily in a row with the label turned to the front)

Daler-Rowney Acrylic Ink in Light Green, Gold, Silver Moss and White 011

Anyway. I had my lovely Seawhites of Brighton that I fell in love with last time I was there. Very inexpensive, great for drawing, the perfect surface and colour, etc. They have a black “jacket”. Here is a pic:

So, they all look alike and I bought plenty. I wanted a way to differentiate between the several medium sized (A4) I bought. Ergo:

The “1” and “2” are made with the shimmering inks “Silver Moss 129” and “Gold (imit) 701” respectively (the gold I find to be more like bronze in colour, or maybe rose gold as when gold is mixed with copper). The “3” is made with the amazing, cthulhuish (sic, happily) “Light Green 348”.
Here is a close-up of the “1”:

I did the translucent shading by blending the colour with different water-washes and mixing with opaque white. Used several different brushes, all synthetic. I especially like the glittering effect of the shimmering inks in “1” and “2”.

I have exciting things planned for the bigger (A4 and A3) Seawhites. The secret, gory, sunshine-yellow drawing and the sketch of the swamp elf I have planned to sculpt in the future for example. It’s all on its way, I promise. Also, eyeballs deluxe, coming up shortly.

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