Nemi and Night Music

I'm not big into the holidays, especially not this year. However, a package from my mom arrived today from the old country, and inside was a special Christmas issue of my all-time favorite Norwegian comic, Nemi, by Lise Myhre. Inside was also a poem by the late poet, Inger Hagerup (another favorite of mine) and her dark, moody poem, "Nattmusikk" ("Night Music"). In translation (instant-translation by yours truly) it would go something like this:

Night Music

The black angst
ascended from the deep.
I stood alone
and saw myself
and felt the pull
toward defeat:
You are from the abyss
after all.

        -Inger Hagerup

Depressing? Actually, receiving this comic brightened my day! Nemi is not depressing, even though she is a goth-girl with a dark and brooding side. Nemi is one of Norway's most popular comics, "everybody" reads it, and mostly for its humor. There is a Nemi in us all, or  if not, I am sure we all know somebody like her. Thanks mom, for your package! :-)

Buildings, Business Cards and Beacon Hill.

After almost ten years working at a big law firm in Boston, my better half, Josh Gardner, is starting up his own practice as a plaintiff's lawyer. Naturally I designed his business card. Josh rented an office in the beautiful Beacon Hill neighborhood, right downtown, and wanted an image of his new building on the card. I went up there one weekend and sketched his building and its immediate surroundings on Mt. Vernon Street, right behind the state house. I really love drawing buildings and houses, so it was a fun assignment for me. Back home, I finished up the drawing with ink and instead of the usual bristol board, I used a type of paper that I had bought at the art supply store previously: Border & Riley's #234 Paris Paper for Pens. It is super smooth, of high quality and I love it (though quite pricey, so it won't be for everyday use, that's for sure)!

I leave the web design to the experts, though. Freelance web designer/illustrator/cartoonist/editor and fellow member of Boston Comics Roundtable, Roho, is in charge of the web site's design and maintenance, and I will post a link to it as soon as Josh officially opens his practice (to visit Roho's blog and see his portfolio, click here).

Do you want a picture of your office building/house on your business card? Instead of a generic-looking drawing, the illustration will still have the characteristics of my usual style. Send me an email for info on rates, turnaround time and rights of usage!

Made With Love

This looks very much like a Christmas whatever-it-is, but it is actually a belated birthday present for a really good friend of mine. I know that she likes pink, floral and angels, but she pretty much has everything when it comes to decorative things, and is actually trying to get rid of stuff, not accumulate more stuff. However, she did need an address book, and instead of just giving her a plain one, or choosing a pattern, I decided to make her a DIY one-of-a-kind book. I bought a regular black Moleskine address book and put together a cover mixed media picture using gesso, acrylic paint, a glossy angel, a washer, molding paste, a rubber stamp, Mod Podge, glitter, an old stamp, some bits of patterned paper and some glittery paper. The image consists of layers of paper, gesso, fabric, paste and paint, sealed with a couple of layers of Mod Podge.

As is the case with a lot of mixed media pieces, this cover is also put together with pieces that have been found and gathered up from various places. I bought the glossy angel from a museum gift shop in Denmark, where they came in little sheets of 8-10. In Norway we call them glansbilder, and when I was a kid, most Scandinavian girls collected them. I had a box of old ones that my mom had collected when she was a kid, but who knows where they are now. I have traveled and moved around from country to country so much that my belongings have been scattered everywhere. I am not sure if anyone collects glansbilder anymore. This angel was, according to sheet, made in West Germany (!), so maybe they haven't been produced for a while? When I moved to Britain in the late 1970's, I was surprised that nobody had even heard of these glossy paper collectibles. When I see them now, I realize how nostalgic they are, a bit like those sweet little figurines that people collect, or Christmas decorations, for that matter. If this had not been a present, I would probably have put some punk/goth influence into the image, if nothing else then just to temper the sweetness of the angel.

The washer was an object I found on my bedroom floor that day. Who knows where it belonged. Some of the lace on the left side was from a whole roll that I bought for 10 cents at a tag sale. The other lace originates from a baby shower decoration that I found out on the street on recycling day somewhere in Brookline. I don't remember where the shiny silver-colored ribbon came from, probably a present or something. The old Syrian stamp was in a ready-packed collection of vintage labels and stuff from Paper-Source, and I grabbed a few pinches of glitter from the kids' arts & crafts box to sprinkle over the image as a final touch.

If I had had more time to do this, I would have made the book myself rather than buying a Moleskine. That would have made the gift far more unique. Also, notebooks and sketchbooks don't have to be expensive, so a customary decorated one can be made pretty cheaply for anyone who is creative and either doesn't have much cash lying around this time of year (who does?), or refuses to buy into the overly commercial aspect of the holiday season. Regardless of what goes into DIY gifts, they are usually made with love, which factory/sweatshop-made products definitely are NOT. If you don't have time to make your own gifts, then visit one of the many holiday crafts fairs this season. Here in Boston, there is the Holly Fair in Cambridge, and Bazaar Bizarre at the Cyclorama, this upcoming weekend. There you will find a lot of neat and unique crafts made locally and with love...and you'll probably find me there too, at either one of those places on Sunday, manning the comic-book table with fellow members of the Boston Comics Roundtable!

Fairy Tales

Earlier this year, I illustrated Troy Minkowsky's take on the fairy tale, "Hansel and Gretel," which in this version became "The Last Temptation of Hansel and Gretel," and which will appear in the anthology Once Upon a Time, to be published by Gurukitty soon. For some reason, we got listed in the credits as "Tony Minkowsky" and "line olssen," but it IS us! Though the anthology is not actually out yet, you can secure your copy now. Preorder it here.

                                                                                         

A bohemian on Newbury Street

I made this piece (above) with ink on bristol board, then worked with the toning in Photoshop. I had started it a while ago, and originally envisioned it in full color, but that's not how it worked out! No surprise, really, because I love working in black and white. The sketch (below), however, turned out to be quite vibrant once I added color to it. I mainly used Copic and Mepxy markers. The scene is Newbury Street in Back Bay, where I spent some time sketching at the beginning of fall. I love to walk around this area and look at the buildings with all their galleries and boutiques, and all the stylishly dressed people walking around in heels, chatting on their smartphones, or walking in groups, heading for a club or a party. Sometimes I bring one of my numerous walking-tour books of Boston with me, and learn a bit about the apartment buildings--many of them old mansions--as I roam around. I love this area, but it is a bit like a bubble. A mix of the grandiose, past and present, and the corporate and fast-paced. And I don't feel entirely at home here, the streets are too clean, and most of the people on the street probably don't belong to the neighborhood either, maybe they work here, but they live elsewhere. On this particular night,  I watched the street light up its windows and street lamps as dusk fell. I sat down and sketched, but most people walked so fast, I could hardly sketch them fast enough before they disappeared around the corner. That was at the beginning of fall, when there was still some warmth in the air. Now it is winter, and freezing cold, but I shouldn't let that stop me from sketching outside. As they say back in the old country: There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes.

MICE 2012

 This year's MICE (Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo) was great! There were tons of vendors and visitors, but at its third show MICE was still local, friendly, unpretentious, and free! Here is a bunch of comics I picked up there: Catalina Rufin's The Summer of Aquarius in the back, next to Allie Kleber's Fruitless. Next row, left to right: Babka Remembers, by Marek Bennett, Eirik the Fed, by Will Clark (Laughing Boy Comics), Heartburn, by Allie Kleber, You're Never More at Home Than When it's Time to Leave, by Matt young, and Oo Pp Qq, Adventures in Substitute Teaching, by Anne Thalheimer. Third row: Free People, by L. Nichols (whom I was lucky enough to sit next to at MICE), Greetings, Brookline: I Am In You! by John Hilliard (a collection of his comics from The Brookline Tab), Zombre, by Ansis A. Purins (this comic was a big hit with my little boys of 8 and 6), Flocks, by L. Nichols, and Monarch Monkey, by Doug De Rocher. In the front: All Rumors Are True, by Laurel Lynn Leake, and the second issue of Inky Stories, by Dave Marshall. The books that didn't make it to this picture are: Nicaragua Comics Travel Journal, by Marek Bennett, and Comics as Poetry, edited by Franklin Einspruch, who also did the vibrant cover illustration and has a poem (as a comic) in there as well: "What Killed The Flowers."

 Above (top): a page from Allie Kleber's Heartburn. I really like her distinct line work! And check out Ansis A. Purins' front cover from Zombre. Pure awesomeness, or what?!

Dave Marshall, here with a spread from "Six-Year-Old Horsethief!" is a pro both when it comes to drawing comics and to teaching the art of drawing comics. He teaches a class at MassArt, The Art of the Comic Book. Outside of class, he often generously shares his knowledge of inking, lettering, etc., so we're happy he is still in our group (BCR) and not off somewhere signing autographs at bigger conventions.

 Doug De Rocher impressed everyone when he joined the BCR (around the same time that I did) and brought along his comics boards, created with cut paper. Monarch Monkey is a collection of his stories, and this one is from the upcoming anthology from Ninth Art Press (more info on that later).

Can you imagine a better gift idea for people who love comics, or who just have a sense of humor than these magnetic comics by Erik Heumiller? Below: three panels of whiteboard comes in a wooden frame with a stand, a marker and a wipe, plus a small bag of magnet people (right) to put in your panels. And voila! You bring the characters to life with your own word bubbles, wipe out the panels as you get new ideas, and have your friends play around with it too!

Left: characters from Charles Schneeflock Snow's new series, Oscar's Kitchen. I really loved his Sordid City Blues comics about a group of friends in Boston (sort of a romantic comedy from a male perspective), so I am looking forward to reading this one. As far as I can tell, it involves Satan and the restaurant business, so it sounds interesting!

The most powerful comic I encountered at MICE this year was L. Nichol's Flocks. Nichols sat at the table next to me, and I found her comics fascinating with their beautifully printed covers and intriguing mixed media technique. When I picked up Flocks, I expected it to be something good, but I did not expect that just from leafing through the pages, the story would throw me a punch in the stomach. This copy of Flocks, with the under title "A Paradox of Faith" is the first chapter of what Nichols intends to be a full graphic novel, and takes us into the world of a girl who realizes that rather than being a part of the "we" of her surrounding community in fact belongs into the category of "those others" who only seem to be defined in degrading, ridiculed and shameful terms. 

Here are some shots of Tofusqirrel's table, which of course caught my eye immediately, because of all the vibrant colors and intricate designs displayed there. I bought a button with a purple Boston terrier for my messenger bag, but could easily have spent more money at her table, it felt like a candy store and I felt like a little kid!

Finally, I picked up Anatomy for Artists (by Anthony Aspesos, illustrated by Karl Stevens) at Karl Steven's table. I needed one for the tutoring classes I am giving to kids, but I can't use the old (originally published 1896) anatomy for artists-book that I picked up in the Brookline Booksmith's used book cellar a while ago. I bought it because I liked the old black & white photos of chubby women with a silent-movie sort of look, but that was before I started reading the text. In the chapter on facial proportions, I realized that this was a book that operated with other theories and terms than we would expect to find in such a book today (it assumes theories of "highly civilized races" and that sort of racist nonsense, I wouldn't be surprised if this were the book Hitler used as a young art student). But Karl Stevens promises that there will be none of that in his book, thankfully! :-)

Of course, I have left out a bunch of awesome people whose tables I didn't get around to this year, or who I didn't buy a comic from this time. A lot of the BCR people were there of course, with their awesome stuff. I would list names, but then I would accidentally leave one or two people out, and so I'd rather not mention any. All the people who arranged the Expo and helped out at it (I regret to admit that I was not one of them this year) did a fantastic job and I am very thankful and impressed by their efforts.

One last thing: Hellbound III is out! I can't wait to buy a copy and read it!

Magnus and Jenner! They're here!

Finally! The children's book, Magnus and Jenner, written by Kim Girard and illustrated by me is available at amazon and at the Brookline Booksmith in Brookline's Coolidge Corner! Also check out the book's website here. Magnus and Jenner will make its way to more independent bookstores in the greater Boston area and I will also bring copies to sell at MICE (Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo) in Porter Square, Cambridge, next Saturday, 09.29.12. I'll have half a table at MICE, selling my minicomics as well as copies of Magnus and Jenner. My next blog post will be about MICE and the comics I'll bring there, so check back again soon! In the meantime, read the Boston Globe article about MICE, posted on BCR's page on Facebook.  The photographer was walking around taking photos at our meeting last week when we all sat down to draw cartoons of mice for MICE.

Voyage Fantastica

This is my very latest illustration, designed by Troy Minkowsky to accompany his steampunk story, Voyage Fantastica, a brilliant adventure story about a boy genius and a cast of unforgettable characters.

Based on Troy's descriptions and mockup-version of the poster, I put this illustration together using a mixed media page as a base (old pages from a book, plus gesso and acrylic paint). I drew the stage part, including the characters, air ship, island and ocean, with ink, then colored it in with watercolor pencils and acrylic paint before I cut it out and stuck it onto the base page. I rubber stamped half of the stars, and then I scanned the whole thing. Because it was a large piece, I had the worst time trying to get it scanned using an oversize color scanner (not a flatbed, but the ones you feed the image into) on short notice. Some places would not let me do it myself, either because that was their policy, or because their scanner was broken. Since I was leaving for Denmark the next day, I didn't have time to wait the few days it would take the places to scan it, so I ended up scanning it in pieces on my own little scanner, then patching the image together in Photoshop.   I used Photoshop to create the rest of the image, including the altered clip-art horses, the color adjustments, ornaments, fonts and the rest of the stars. The original artwork is therefore very different from the finished illustration, as it remains very "unfinished."

As you can tell by earlier blog posts, this is by no means my first project with Troy Minkowsky. Another piece of good news is that Troy's version of the Hansel and Gretel fairytale, which I illustrated earlier this year, has been selected for Gurukitty's next anthology, Once Upon a Time, and will likely come out at the end of this year/beginning of 2013. More on that later!

Another piece of information: my drawings at the Brookline Town Hall will stay up for one more week, as the next exhibitor in room 103 has scheduled to put up her work on August 7th. In this way, there won't be a gap in the continuing exhibits on the Town Hall walls. So if you still want to see the drawings, but just haven't gotten around to it, there is still time!

Mixed Media Orchids From Denmark (With Love)

I just returned from a quick trip to Denmark. I am going to post some sketchbook pages from my travel-sketchbook, but before I do that, I'll share this mixed media piece that I did over there, and that my father will now have to find a frame for and add to his (not-so-small) collection of his youngest daughter's creative expressions. Like most parents, though, he appreciates his children's' work (unless I include him in my semi-autobiographical comics) and always displays it around the house. 

I had forgotten how beautiful Denmark is in the summer. Most of the days came with warm sunshine, but without the extreme heat and humidity we get over here. The inspiration for this piece was my father and stepmother's orchids in the big living room window with all the sunshine and blue skies outside. My parents' houses are full of plants and flowers, and in their gardens and greenhouse, there are tomato plants, cucumbers, herbs, roses, berry bushes, fruit trees, and plenty of brightly-colored flowers. All meticulously cared for with love. And here I am, someone who can't even keep a cactus alive, and I have no patience for gardening and plants anyway. Instead, I inherited my creative urge from both of them, and prefer to draw flowers rather than care for the actual things (though, to be honest...I don't draw or paint an awful lot of flowers either). 

The background is made of cut-outs from local newspapers from the Sallingsund area, pasted on bristol board with gesso and paint mixed in with it. I drew the flowers with pencil, painted them with watercolor and redrew them with ink. The zipper on the upper left hand corner is something I found out on my father's porch, and nobody could figure out who had lost it. I think it must have been my friend, Lis-Anne, who came to visit a few days earlier. Lis-Anne: if you are missing this object, you now know where to find it!

Mixed Media: A Few Quick Thoughts, Illustrated

Lately, I've been having some fun experimenting with mixed media techniques. It seems to be the new craze right now; I've found numerous blogs, websites and magazines offering advice, materials, community and other resources. I absolutely love the stuff I find out there, it is all so very inspiring and shows what you can do with relatively inexpensive materials and a lot of imagination! 

The challenge of this is to make something uniquely different, something which stands out. A lot of mixed  media art does not seem to reflect the artist's unique style, and there is a tendency among creatives to adhere to a certain "look," often very feminine-looking hybrids of Victorian and modernist non-figurative. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely dig this style, with all its lace and flowers, shabby "found objects,"vintage yellowed pages with brightly-colored rubber stamps, splashed paint and so forth. I have also found artists who do let their personal style shine through. I am just still looking for more variety in contemporary mixed media illustration, an area where everything is permitted and thus possible. 

Don't look at me, though! I am still just experimenting, as I mentioned earlier. These two pieces are the ones that I have liked enough to keep around so far, and as it often happens with the things I make, the comics influence seeps in everywhere...

New Exhibit, Poetry And Things-To-Still-Look-Forward-To.

There is a new exhibit at the Brookline Town Hall in Brookline Village. Until July 31, 2012, my drawings will be on display alongside works from two other Brookline artists, Evelyn Berde and Luca Ricco. The town hall apparently exhibits works of local artists throughout the year, something I never even knew until fellow BCR member, Peter Stringham suggested I submit my art. Thank you, Peter! And thank you also, Brenda Sullivan, for all the help you provide to make these exhibits happen!

My drawings will be in Room 103, to the left of the main entrance. You can view them during the town hall's opening hours, Mon through Fri, 8.00AM-8.00PM, as long as the room is not in use for a meeting. The other artists have their work in Room 111, to the right of the main entrance, and upstairs (I think). We will hold a reception, Friday June 8, 5.00-7.00PM that I hope you will attend! There will be (non-alcohol) refreshment, and lots of interesting people, I am sure! I am so excited to be in this exhibit because it is my first show in Brookline, the town that I have lived in for the last 9 years, and which has become my "home town" here in the United States.

Some of the illustrations from Magnus and Jenner, a children's book by Brookline-based author, Kim Girard, will be on display for the first time. The book is due to come out soon--practically "any minute now!"--and will feature these drawings and more. Above is "In the Troll Cave," where Jenner checks out the intellectual troll, Magnus's heavy collection of books, and Magnus takes a peek at Jenner's beloved comics. The scene is set below ground, in Magnus's damp burrow by an old bridge in New England. This is right before his journey to...but wait, I'll let you read all about it when the book comes out! Other stuff will also be available, and here is a sample of the merchandise, a t-shirt with a Magnus and Jenner illustration from the book:

Aside from the book illustrations and the exhibit, I have been busy with other projects too. You can check out an illustration I did for a poem, "Man Dies After Sex With Horse," by Jade Sylvan. It is published online as a broadside here  by the journal Amethyst Arsenic,  edited by Samantha Milowsky (who offered me the assignment. Thank you, Samantha!) I love the poem, it is not what you would expect to read when you hear the title, which refers to an  actual event that probably made a quite a few headlines in the media when it happened. The event actually also led to a change in legislation regarding certain animal "interactions," but that part of the story is not what the poem is about. The poem deals with bigger metaphysical questions regarding human identity and our place in cosmos, timeless questions we as humans never stop thinking about.

Last, but not least: I recently illustrated another story for Troy Minkowsky, "The last Temptation of Hansel and Gretel," which he submitted to a Vancouver-based anthology published by Gurukitty, this time with an alternative-fairy tale theme called "Once Upon a Time." I am happy to say that the story made it to the anthology, which will probably be published later this year! I loved doing these illustrations, because I experimented a little with the frames and background, and was happy with the result. 

And now: back to work, because there is SO MUCH to draw and SO LITTLE time!

Coming soon: Magnus and Jenner.

The children's book, Magnus and Jenner, by Kim Girard, which will be out in May, 2012! I am very excited about this project, since I have had the pleasure to illustrate this awesome story, and I can't wait to see it in print! This illustration, however, is just something I've put together for this blog post. Who better to start talking about the book than the hostess from that grisly reality show, "Beasts in Your Backyard?"


In Magnus and Jenner, this lady will help you hunt for strange creatures that lurk around your neighborhood. She is not the only one who offers help for people in distress either; further south, you can call the Alligator Eliminators, who will be more than happy to remove those pesky alligators that wander off from the swamp...and maybe the alligator eliminators have an eye out for other suspicious-looking creatures too...like trolls! But do trolls really exist? Are they dangerous? Or perhaps they are even more afraid of you than you are afraid of them? If they exist, then how come you never get to see them?

Magnus and Jenner is the story of an unlikely friendship between two very different characters, a boy and a troll. While the ever-cautious New England bridge troll, Magnus, sets out to search for his family, Jenner is in trouble at school, weighed down by his troubled family and just wants to run away. Since they  have a common destination in mind, the two set out on a journey that turns out to be more of an adventure than they had envisioned...

This won't be the last blog post about this book! Look out for the book's webpage too, it's currently under construction!

"Sweet Nothings" for 2012 Sketchbook Project World Tour

This video shows my finished sketchbook for the Art House Co-op's 2012 Sketchbook Project World Tour. I sent the book in yesterday, right at the last minute! This is the first time I put together a video, so bear with me! The music is by my son, Alexander Olsson, who took piano lessons growing up , and who briefly studied digital music production in Norway. Now he makes music in his free time, mostly digital stuff. Lucky for me, he lets me use his songs as soundtracks to my videos!

For more info on the Sketchbook Project, go here.

Sketching in Boston and Brookline

I bring my sketchbook everywhere, and there is nothing I enjoy sketching more than cityscapes and buildings, preferably with people in them. Landscapes and cityscapes alike seem lonely if there isn't at least one living creature in them (a squirrel will do, but I prefer people, and most of all people with a bit of a personality or attitude that I then want to capture). Or maybe the way I draw people says more about me and how I view the world than the people in my pictures? You be the judge.

Kenmore Square. A made-up billboard ad promoting "romance, marriage and financial security" a toned-down CITGO sign and a crowd of indifferent students (how could they not be indifferent?). 

 The Koo Koo Cafe across the Brookline Village station. I used to come here all the time with friends, because there are toys for kids to play with at the back. Now that my kids are all in school, I only stop by when they have lemon poppy seed muffins (which is only once in a while).

On the C-line (which is more like a sluggish trolley bus than a subway train), a day in November. The quote is from Thich Nhat Hahn, and one of my favorites.

On a bench overlooking the Boston Commons. At lunchtime, there were people everywhere, spilling out from office buildings, the State House, schools and subway stations. They crossed the park to go who knows where to have lunch, to meet up, or, as the elderly (probably retired) guy on the right, to go for a run. I was listening to music, and some lyrics from Bob Dylan's Abandoned Love ended up on the pages as well.

Sunday at the Arboretum in JP. The brutal-looking concrete building housing the Mass State Laboratory was at once a contrast to the nature of the park, but also seemed to belong there, in the surrounding city with its eclectic architecture.