ninajohansson.se

Purple

2009-07-13T21:52:00.003+02:00

A little more experimental this time. This is part of the old stable by the Guesthouse in the last post. No horses on the island these days, they have a few hotel rooms and some other functions in this building now.

20 x 20 cm, pencil and watercolours on Saunders Waterford watercolour paper.

The guesthouse

2009-07-10T13:28:00.006+02:00

The rain took a break day before yesterday, so I went out painting. I had to rush it a bit, since the wind was a bit too cold for my liking, but if felt good to get some work done.

The building is a guesthouse/restaurant nearby our summer house, it used to be the headquarters of the saw mill on the island during the first half of the 20th century.

20 x 20 cm, pencil and watercolours on Saunders Waterford watercolour paper.

Västberga

2009-07-02T00:12:00.005+02:00

A few days ago I took the bike out to an industrial area not far from where we live, and sat down in the shadow behind a parked trailer to paint this old building. For once I had real painting gear with me, and a sheet of proper watercolour paper.

I find so much inspiration in this place, the old buildings, the dirt around them, big vehicles and strange constructions for industrial use... It never ends. And when a painting is done, you bike one block away and find the next fantastic sight to paint.

20 x 20 cm, pencil and watercolours on Saunders Waterford watercolour paper.

Värmland

2009-06-27T10:51:00.004+02:00

This is where we spent our two days in Värmland - in a small red cottage with white corners, the archetype of Swedishness. The weather was fantastic, Swedish summer at it´s best, and the only thing that disturbed the idyll was the fact that I can´t spend more than 24 hours in a place like this before my allergy goes berserk.

18 x 15 cm, Copic Multiliner SP and watercolours on Fabriano Artistico hot press watercolour paper.

On the road

2009-06-27T10:46:00.004+02:00

We took a two-day trip to Värmland, in Western Sweden, towards the border of Norway, where my in-laws live. The road there isn´t too interesting if you have seen it a few times, but here and there it curves so nicely through the hills and the forests, like a soft ribbon, and I just had to try to capture it on paper.

13 x 10 cm, Pitt artist brush pens on Fabriano Artistico hot press watercolour paper.

Midsummer

2009-06-19T15:11:00.003+02:00

Midsummer Eve in Sweden. Everybody hopes to achieve total happiness and 100 % sunshine on this day, but I actually had a few drops of rain when I went out to draw just nearby where I live. The happiness level is ok, though. :)

12,5 x 17 cm, Lamy Safari with Noodler´s Lexington gray ink and watercolours on sketchbook page.

Volvo Ocean Race

2009-06-17T19:50:00.003+02:00

The boats from Volvo Ocean Race landed in Stockholm today, and the city has blocked of a whole quai (Skeppsbron) for the occasion, causing a few traffic jams here and there.
I love sailing, and even though I don´t like this kind of event very much (you know, a big stage with performing celebrities, a few stands selling beer and simple food, an inner sealed off area for the sailors and business people to mingle in, and loads of ordinary people watching the whole thing) I had to go see these boats in real life. My, our livingroom is narrower than these floating giants!

13 x 17 cm, Lamy Safari with Noodler´s Lexington gray ink and watercolours on sketchbook page.

Oldie

2009-06-09T20:46:00.003+02:00

Went drawing with a friend (actually, I draw and she takes photos) day before yesterday, and we both wanted to take a closer look at this church, Botkyrka kyrka, on the edge of the Southern suburbs of Stockholm. The largest part of this old building is from the 12th century, which is kind of overwhelming when you start to think of it. Just imagine all the people who visited this place through almost ninehundred years...

15 x 18, Copic Multiliner SP and watercolours on sketchbook page.

Flowers from my dearies

2009-06-07T01:04:00.003+02:00

My third year-students finished school two days ago. They are a bunch of lovely young people, with intelligence and hearts enough to change at least a part of the world for the better, and I wish them all the luck from now on. Actually, I´m not too worried about them, I know they will do well. But I know Monday will be an empty day at work, now that they are gone...

Anyway, I thought I´d draw some of the flowers in the beautiful bouquet they gave me, just to keep that memory in my sketchbook...

12 x 17 cm, Copic Multiliner SP and Kremer watercolours on sketchbook page.

Happy strings

2009-05-25T22:53:00.003+02:00

This is not a deformed guitar, it´s a (deformed) ukulele, the craziest instrument on the planet. Bring one of these to any situation with people in it, and everybody starts smiling. No one can stay sour in the same room as a ukulele, and you can be sure they will want to try to play.

Ukuleles are totally un-threatening, gentle, fun, a little goofy - and STILL completely possible to play serious music on. It´s small, fits into almost any bag. Weighs nothing. Costs almost nothing. Easy to learn a few chords on to get started. In short - the perfect companion. Every human being should own one, it would make the world a softer place. :)

14 x 11 cm, pencil, Copic markers and black ink pen on bleedproof marker paper.

More drawing time, please

2009-05-24T00:13:00.003+02:00

Nope, I didn´t disappear. Work just got a little hectic, so I let the blog rest for a while. Soon time for a long vacation, though, so I don´t worry too much about it.

I´ve been playing around with these impossible but funny Copic markers for a bit. You know how markers are always impossible because they bleed through the paper? Well, get the right kind of paper and you´ll have good fun with them! I bought a pad of really smooth and bleedproof marker paper, and now I am learning some tricks with these fantastic pens.

For example: don´t draw black lines and then try to colour them in (as I almost always do with other techniques) - the markers will solve the black ink and everything will be a mess. Black lines go on as a last detail.
And: even if you don´t draw over the black pen, you can still make a mess - as in this drawing of a Swedish table classic (Bregott butter). I can´t really control these fellas, and I kind of like it. They keep surprising me. :)

15 x 11 cm, pencil, Copic markers and black pen on bleedproof marker paper.

First of May

2009-05-01T16:33:00.003+02:00

Two posts on the same day! Not a usual habit of mine, but I thought I´d post this fresh on the right day.

It´s the first of May today, and in Stockholm the International Worker´s day is celebrated with several street demonstrations organized by the political parties to the left. I took a bike ride through town, passing by three different demonstrations. It must be a logistic nightmare for the people who draw the maps for these marches - they all take place simultaneously, and they all want to be close to the city center. The whole town is like a huge street festival with orchestras, drums, red flags, demonstration signs and people shouting, singing, marching.

I sat on a little doorstep on Kungsgatan drawing this while the Social Democratic party marched by.

13 x 17 cm, Lamy Safari with Lexington gray ink and watercolours on sketchbook page.

Café window view

2009-05-01T10:26:00.002+02:00

The view out the window in the same café as in the last post.

10 x 15,5 cm, Copic Multiliner SP and watercolours on sketchbook page.

Thank you thank you thank you

2009-04-23T21:56:00.003+02:00

Thank you all so much for your comments on my three exhibited paintings, they are all very much appreciated! There is no way I will have time to answer each and every one of your comments, since they are so many, but please know that I have read them all and I am very grateful for your encouragement. Thank you.

The drawing is from Wayne´s coffee in my hometown Umeå in northern Sweden. I spent the Easter holidays there, and had a really good time visiting family and friends.

13 x 15,5 cm, Copic Multiliner SP and watercolours on sketchbook page.

Exhibition piece no.3

2009-04-20T20:01:00.002+02:00

The third and last of the paintings in the exhibition at Edsviks konsthall.

20 x 20 cm, watercolours on Arches 300 g watercolour paper.

Exhibition piece no.2

2009-04-19T19:09:00.002+02:00

This is the second painting from the exhibition (see the previous post). All the images are inspired by the island in Northern Sweden where I spend much of my summers, though they are not exact depictions of the place. I figured that if I choose a subject that I know well, I can concentrate on the watercolours and experiment around this theme.

20 x 20 cm, watercolours on Arches 300 g watercolour paper.

Exhibition piece no.1

2009-04-18T17:34:00.004+02:00

I wrote in an old post some time ago that I had made some small paintings that I didn´t want to show just yet, since I had some plans for them. I thought I´d tell you now that what I did was to send three of them into a juried watercolour exhibition, and they were all accepted! So now they are all up at the National Watercolour Salon at Edsviks Konsthall, just north of Stockholm. (I would put a link here, but their site seems to be down today for some reason.)

This is my first serious try to exhibit any of my work, so I´m thrilled that it all worked out. I´ll post the other two paintings in the next two days.

20 x 20 cm, watercolours on Arches 300 g watercolour paper.

Drawing bones

2009-04-17T18:17:00.003+02:00

Drawing a skeleton together with my students. I find the details intriguing, can´t believe that´s the way we all look inside...

13 x 17 cm, pencil on sketchbook page.

Sketchcrawl #22

2009-04-12T22:47:00.006+02:00

This time the Stockholm crowd (of three) decided to hit Arlanda Airport for our Sketchcrawl day. A big airport is great for drawing people and strange technical stuff, and we had a great day with lots of drawing challenges. And coffee.

(Curious about why we had a sketchcrawl on the 4th of April instead of the official 11th? Well, us Swedes celebrate Easter (and Christmas, and just about every other big holiday) on the Eve before the actual Day, and the 11th of April was the day when all Swedes went to their relatives to eat eggs. No one had time to go on a Sketchcrawl then, so we sneakily changed the date...)

13 x 18 cm, except the last drawing, 13 x 7 cm. Copic Multiliner SP on sketchbook pages.

Crayon play

2009-03-30T17:30:00.004+02:00

Playing around with the crayons again. Thick crayons are more like painting than drawing, really. Fun and difficult. Used myself as a model in front of a mirror, though the beige image isn´t me at all... I think it´s hilarious the way I seem to have a horn in my forehead in the top drawing - it fits my angry frown. :)

13.x 17,5 cm, watercolour wash and Caran d´Ache Neocolor I crayons on sketchbook pages.

New toys

2009-03-26T22:34:00.002+01:00

I forgot to post this - a bit of play with some new wax crayons. I´ve been wanting some real quality wax crayons for a while, and I finally invested in (or wasted money on, depends on how you look at it) a box of Caran d´Ache Neocolor I a few weeks ago. This drawing is me comparing the Neocolor crayons with the really old cheapo crayons I had before (cheapo on the left, Neocolor on the right).

The difference isn´t so much in the image as in my wrist. The left image was really hard work, the cheapos don´t really want to leave colour on the paper - probably because they´re mostly wax and not so much pigment - while the Neocolors just smeared on like butter. Wonderful!

17 x 13 cm, Faber Castell Smart crayons and Caran d´Ache Neocolor I crayons on sketchbook page.

Life drawing

2009-03-23T23:06:00.002+01:00

I went to a life drawing session with two friends tonight, and it´s been a loooong time since I did this. Out of twenty drawings, one was decent enough to show. Will have to practice some more soon...

15 x 19 cm, pencil on copier paper

Watercolour sketch

2009-03-09T20:49:00.003+01:00

I am playing around with watercolours a lot these days, just trying things out, letting the colours and the water get really messy on the paper. I found this paper the other day, a very odd kind with a surface that reminds me of canvas, and I had to try it out. This is the result of about an hour of play with watercolours and various odd objects I found at work.

I started with the yellowish frame - I put some very wet colour onto an actual metal frame I found lying around at work, and then quickly (otherwise the colour will run off) threw it down on the paper. I leaned the paper a bit, letting the yellow run around inside the frame. Then I went on with printing some textures onto the paper with various materials (cellular plastic, wood boards, cardboard) and painting the rest. I like the surprising textures you get from printing with watercolours - it is of course impossible to control a print like that, and they always end up completely different than you expected.

This sketch gave me some ideas for several new paintings, so I´m going on experimenting...

16,5 x 25 cm, watercolours and pencil on some strange Hahnemüle watercolour paper.

A new site to follow

2009-03-07T21:50:00.003+01:00

I have been interviewed on Bill Turner´s new site The Tools Artists Use. As the name says, it is a site dedicated to the tools that creative folks use, and Bill interviews different artists about their habits and art gear. Check it out, put a bookmark there, and keep following his site in the future - it should be pretty interesting!

Las Palmas #4, last one

2009-03-05T17:42:00.004+01:00

These are the last two sketchbook pages from Las Palmas, and they are not from Las Palmas at all. They are from a little village called Puerto de Mogán by the southeast coast of Gran Canaria. A very picturesque place, a tad too many tourists hanging around the harbour and beach, but otherwise a still alive fishing village, with incredible steep narrow alleys between the houses climbing up the mountainside.

This is the place where the most people came up to talk to me while I was drawing. Some Germans, one or two Frenchmen, an English couple, three young Canarian boys, a man from the Netherlands, and the waitress at the café where I drew this rose and sugar castor - they all came up and asked if they could see what I was doing (or simply looked over my shoulder) and commented on my work (all in very kind words) and talked for a little while. It´s like I´ve always said: drawing IS a contact sport. It´s even better than babies and dogs.

13 x 18,5 cm, Lamy Safari with Noodler´s Polar Black ink and watercolours on sketchbook pages.