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.

Early October

Nature fascinates me. It is so inspiring to see it change from spring to winter. Last month I went out and took a bunch of reference photos. It had been raining, as it does in the fall, and the small streams in the forest were raging with an overflow of water, washing everything out of its way. The leaf-trees had gone from green to yellow and orange, leaving a beautiful contrast to the dark and mossy pine around. The sun shone through the clouds and gave everything an almost magical golden touch.

My words cannot truly bring it to justice, but I hope that the latest painting I am working on will catch just a glimpse of the impression it left on me and on the same time continue on my ongoing Tomte-theme.

I regret to show you just a cropped teaser of the full picture at this time, but I promise to show more of everything as it progresses.

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Story of a Tomte (final)

I had some time to finish the details on this, not really anything new - just finalized. I have just started on the second piece in the series, hopefully I'll have something more to show you soon.

Fraggle Rock Boober

Today Jim Henson would have been 75 years old. I grew up with the creations of The Muppets and Fraggle Rock and they bring out a lot of memories even today. Boober was the character I remember clearest from Fraggle Rock. He was the coolest of them all. To me, Henson represents creativity and innovation. I am happy that his legacy carries on to inspire new generations, and this image, though small, is my tribute. May his legacy never die.

Boober Fraggle. Watercolour and Gouache.

Portrait of a Train Driver

Working on a rather fun children's game (that I cannot for obvious reasons reveal too much about at the moment), I got to do some character portraits. This of an old Train Driver that I became rather fond of...

I hope we'll be finished with the project soon enough to show you a small movieclip of it.

Story of a Tomte (part 3)

Have had a nice holliday; walking the forest, picking mushrooms, blueberries, raspberries... made new friends, met a frog and longhorned grasshopper, and on top of all that, I finished the watercolor work on my piece about a tomte! It has a nice warm classic feel to it which I don't want to change.

 

Now a few digital strokes are still going to be added in order to work out the values better, but as this piece is larger than my scanner I will have to send it off for digital photo reproduction. that will give me a nice crisp image without too much paper texture to work with.

Story of a Tomte (part 2)

I have started the watercolor process of piece, thought I'd give you some progress shots!

 

The underpainting done...

 

Started to work on the shadows...