Merry Christmas

Joyful tides. It's been a great year and I am looking forward to see what the next one brings. I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Tomten och Rödhaken (The Tomte and European Robin), 

10x15 cm, Watercolor and Acryla Gouache

Caroleans

I've been working on a fairly small painting lately (17x28 cm / 6.7x11 in). It will later serve as a reference for a larger painting on the same subject.

Three Caroleans meet a Lady in White during late 17th century Sweden. 

Watercolor / Digital

The Caroleans (Swedish: Karoliner) were the soldiers of the Swedish kings Charles XI and Charles XII. 

Workshops and Cookie Monsters

Last weekend i attended the second Northern Light Workshop with Jesper Ejsing and Eva Widermann as instructors. The focus was on character design, so I took the opportunity to polish my ideas of a cookie monster for a children's tale I'm working on together with Therese Järvheden.

Trying to get the pose right before I do a larger sketch...

After making a larger sketch of the pose I want, I refine the image on a new piece of paper and start coloring. This day I wanted to try painting directly on a toned piece of paper.

Cookie Monster

Watercolor and Acryla Gouache on toned paper

Digital finish

I learned a ton during the process of this image and I had a lot of fun making it. I will have more to show you from the children's tale as it progresses!

Pictures courtesy of Dave Brasgalla (Thanks Dave!) If you want to see more from the workshop I recommend checking out the photostream over at Flickr.

Webshop

I am happy to announce that my webshop over at Etsy is now open!

I am starting up with a small stock of sketchbooks, but I will keep you updated whenever I put up something new. Next will be some prints from my project on Scandinavian Folklore. 

etsy.com/shop/DannieBorg

Book Fair 2012

Yesterday evening I got home from the final day at the Book Fair in Gothenburg. Thank you all who came by and made this a memorable experience! Below you'll find some pictures from the fair:

A lot of people came by my stand for prints, originals and nice conversations...

The right wall of my stand...

Back wall...

Left Wall...

 In between visits I was busy doing sketches and drawings. Unfortunately I didn't get the time to take photographs of them all before they were gone, but below are a few I really enjoyed doing:

Again, thank you to all who came by, I really appreciated all the positive feedback I got from you.

My Webshop should be open soon, so keep an eye out for the announcement on my blog. There you will find prints, books and occasionally originals. 

Sketchbook 2012

Just got the sketchbooks from the printing company, and it is looking good!

Sketchbook 2012
A5 (148mm x 210mm), 32 pages Full Color

 the sketchbooks will be sold at the Book Fair in Gothenburg (Sweden) september 27-30th.
If you are going, come visit me at Stand no: A04:29

Scandinavian folklore has always fascinated me, and living so close to nature I get my dose of inspiration every day. For this sketchbook I have focused on the little creature known as Tomte.

   

Sometimes they get to meet other scandinavian creatures up close...

The sketchbook will be available through my Etsy shop in october. I'm still setting it up, but expecting it to be live on october 1st.

Sketchbook and Book Fair

I am excited to say that I will be attending the Gothenburg Book Fair (Bokmässan i Göteborg) in September (27th-30th) this year. It is the first time I will be an exhibitor, so make sure to drop by! I will be doing some live drawings and my 2012 Sketchbook will make it's debut.

Here is a sneak peak from my 2012 Sketchbook.

A character study for a larger painting I am working on

Frog studies

Flying Amphibian

I will post more of the sketchbook as time goes. I plan to release the full sketchbook online in October.

Monsters and Space Adventures

I am happy to show you some of the stuff I've been working on. Last week I received a small package from Askunge containing the final printed copies of Monstertrubbel (Monster-trouble) and Matematik i ett Rymdäventyr (Mathematics in an Space Adventure). They are educational books in mathematics for younger children, and I got to work on the covers and inside illustrations.

"Monstertrubbel" is written by Victoria W Gustafsson och Anette S Panboon, who also wrote"Seven Gates" (De Sju Portarna) which I previously wrote about here. "Matematik i ett Rymdäventyr" is written by Mirvi Unge Thorsén

 Cover for Monstertrubbel

(Monster-trouble)

Pencil and Watercolor

Cover for the accompanying book, Lyckas Med Problemlösning A

(Succeeding With Problem-Solving A)

Pencil and Watercolor

Cover for Matematik i ett Rymdäventyr
(Mathematics in an Space Adventure)

Watercolor, Ink and Gouache.

Both projects were part of an incredible journey. If you want to know more, you can read parts of the books online over at Askunge's website (in Swedish), and they are also available for sale at their online store. Hope you enjoyed seeing the covers.

Troll Studies

Last weekend I attended the Northern Light Workshop in Stockholm. There I learned a ton about how to develop my images further in two intense days of painting and listening to the combined wisdom and experience of Justin Gerard, Jesper Ejsing and Petar Meseldzija (not to mention all the talented students!).

One of the most important things I learned during the course was about how to plan your images from sketch to finish. Doing studies of the details before applying them to the final image. These sketches are a direct result of this.

In a hole in a tree stump...

...there lived a tomte. Since last year I have done a numerous amount of sketches and paintings on the theme of Nordic mythology. If time between commissions allow it, I am hoping to have the project done toward the fall of this year.

This is one of the pieces on the table right now.

And on the other side of the room, there is another one...

 

I have shown details from the picture above before. It is progressing slowly but surely.

I particularly enjoy the small company of Wights below the bridge. 

At the end of the month I am joining the Northern Light Workshop in Stockholm to further develop my techniques and imagery. The guest instructors will be Jesper Ejsing, Petar Meseldzija and Justin Gerard. Very exiting. I am going to post a few images and write more about the workshop when that time comes. Until then, there are more images to create.

Lionel the Lion

In july last year I wrote about my first children's book commission by Mind Vitamins about Leif the Lion. Now, as I am happy to see it have finally been published for iPad (in three languages!), I thought I'd show you some of the final artwork done for the book.

Lionel in the Park with ol' Grandma. 

Lionel together with his friend Bee.

The pictures in the book were drawn with watercolour pencils on 350gms cotton paper. It was a fun project to work on and I learned a lot about planning your images for interactivity. It also led to another commission (with a very different theme) I will be writing more about later this year.

If you are interested in the book, you can get it Here. 

Seven Gates

 It is always fun to receive a printed copy of the final product. Mirvi over at Askunge sent me a few reading copies of "De Sju Portarna" (eng. The Seven Gates") and gave me permission to show you an excerpt from it.

Above: At the table, a few reading copies

Above: Page 5 from "De Sju Portarna". Text by the very talented Victoria W Gustafsson and Annette S Panboon.

Progress. It is funny how things turn out sometimes. The illustrations were from the beginning planned as black and white and painted in ink, but changed to color in the end.

I had great fun during the entire project. Now off to the next one!

A Good Year

Happy New Year to all of you! 

Last year I mainly focused on my own projects and development as an artist, but towards the end of the year it got really busy when I got contacted by Askunge (publishing company). It was a great project to work on, including narrative illustrations as well as covers to two educational books in mathematics and problem solving. I am happy to show you the final covers below (I wish I had math-books like this when I went to school).

Watercolour and Ink

Watercolour and Ink

For more info on the books, you can read Askunge's blog here (article in Swedish). I wish you all a good continuation on the New Year as it progresses forward, remember the best is always yet to come.