Spare Change Illustration

Recently, I had the opportunity to do an illustration for the Boston alternative newspaper, Spare Change. With this assignment, I really got the feel of what it is like to do creative work under a very tight deadline, and I must admit that such pressure tends to work well with me. I spent about an hour and a half sketching Marc Goldfinger, part-time vendor and writer for Spare Change, during his interview with freelance writer, Micah Stahl. It was a nice, warm day in Cambridge's Central Square, and time flew by as I filled my sketchbook pages with observations. I love to draw people in person, rather than from photographs, and especially while they are not paying attention to me, but focused on a conversation with someone else. This situation draws out a person's personality that I then try to capture in my drawing. I also like to bring the surroundings into the portrait, in this case the area outside the 1369 Coffeehouse. To me it seemed like a nice, busy place that I could have spent the whole day in, had I not had to rush home and take care of kids and their school pick-ups, park playdates and karate lessons (yesterday, however, a Spare Change vendor complained that I had made Central Square look 'too nice,' since in his opinion it was the worst #%*!! neighborhood in town! :-)

In-between picking kids up from school, packing for a weekend trip, etc. I had to draw the illustration with ink, based on my pencil sketches, then scan it, clean it up in Photoshop and send it off by around 7-8 PM. Thanks to my lovely friend, Sowmya, I was able to make it, since she brought my kids over to her house for a few hours to play with her son.

Hopefully, I will be able to do more assignments like this one. In the meantime, I am working on the Open Fire! project (see previous blog post), and as the July 1 deadline for that one comes closer, my productivity seems to go up!

The Pirates Are Coming!

Here is a cover and a preview/promo page for the upcoming comic, Open Fire! It is not a new project for the writer, Troy Minkowsky, but it's a new one for me. In fact I don't think I have ever drawn a comic about pirates, zombies and other fantasy figures before (except mermaids). I definitely have not drawn a comic that features a sock puppet, that one is a first! I really enjoy doing the artwork for this story, though. The characters are interesting, and there are at least three female characters in the story, which appeals to me. I also enjoy drawing seascapes, sea creatures and all that good stuff, and it's always fun to do something that is entirely new to me. I hope this won't be the last you hear of this story! There will be more to follow...

An Education

This the first page of a 3-page story that I submitted to an upcoming anthology on education. The anthology should be published in time for a conference on comics and education (for more info check out this website: http://necac.net/46/)

I chose to do a story set at Balfour House School, a British private school in Wales that I attended for a few years in the late 1970's. I was the only non-native English speaking student at the time, and although I learned English quite quickly, I would not recommend anyone to learn a new language in that sort of setting. Balfour House was a very strict school where corporal punishment was practiced regularly, an aspect of the school that I tried to work into my comic.

A few years ago, I learned that Balfour House no longer exists, and that the building is currently falling down. It is too bad about the building, it is an old stone structure, and originally a monastery (or so the rumor went back in the 70's). I saw some pictures posted online, where the iron gates were rusty and the windows boarded up. Weeds and grass grew up through the exterior staircase. On the other hand, part of me is relieved to have outlived that institution, because although I remember most of the students and many of my teachers fondly, I really, really did not like that school with all its rigid rules, traditionalist gender views and violence against kids.

Comics in the New Year!

In 2010, I started a new project, to illustrate chapter 5 of Dave Kender's graphic novel, The Ragbox. This is a really fun assignment that I love working on, but I also hope to finish up quite soon (it always feels good to complete assignments!).

The chapter is set in a beauty salon in the Ragbox neighbourhood, the setting for the novel. I love the characters in this chapter, especially Angel, the beautiful twentysomething hairdresser who I really enjoy drawing!

To read more about this graphic novel--the first three chapters have already been published--check out the blog for The Ragbox: http://www.theragbox.com/

Dreamers

This is a pen & ink drawing I made the other day, inspired by one of my photos from Copenhagen last fall. Tivoli is an old amusement park smack in the middle of the city, a beautiful and magical place or a kitchy tourist trap, depending on your outlook. I tend to go for the first description myself, although the quiet (yes, a quiet amusement park in the middle of a city!) atmosphere with its million little lights, brightly colored flowers and fairy-tale feel is an illusion. It is definitely a place for daydreamers, which I've tried to capture in this picture.

Scenes From The Holiday Season in Boston

This Saturday, I tabled at Bazaar Bizarre in Boston, an alternative arts/crafts fair that draws a huge crowd of holiday shoppers. Above are my pink ladies, which I displayed on one corner of the BCR table.

Eric Boeker planned and arranged the Boston Comics Roundtable presence at Bazaar Bizarre this year.

Things at our table: Independent work by Dan Mazur, Aya Rothwell and various contributors to the Left-Overs of the Living Dead, put together by Jay Kennedy.

A little untraditional holiday cards by Eric Boeker.





Bazaar Bizarre was held inside the Cyclorama, which is a gorgeous building. This is the ceiling in the middle of the hall.





Above: panel 2 of a short comic strip I worked on with Troy Minkowsky. Below: panel 1 of a short comic strip I worked on with Roho. Both may show up on some BCR holiday wrapping paper this season.

The Cyclorama is in the beautiful South End neighbourhood of Boston.

To be honest, I don't have a lot of skills as a salesperson (none, in fact), but I enjoy working at the holiday fairs--all fairs and conventions--nevertheless. It's fun to see what other vendors have to offer, and to be inspired. It's a great place to people-watch, and to chat with people who approach the table. I hope to be at the Holly Fair in Cambridge next weekend.

Canada, Comics & Cheesecake

Cheesecake pen & ink drawing w/ pink frame

View from our hotel window in Montreal

Mural in Montreal

Expozine 2010

On most Friday nights (after the worst rush traffic has subsided), we drive up to Vermont for the weekend. Last Friday, we decided that we would stretch the weekend out a little, so we went on to Montreal on Saturday, spent the night there, then drove back to Vermont on Sunday afternoon, and finally came back to Boston Monday night.

Montreal is one of my favorite cities in the northeast for several reasons: it's in Canada, and since it's also in Quebec, where most people speak French, you really get the sense that you have gone abroad. Otherwise, going to Canada from the U.S. feels a bit like crossing the border from Norway into Sweden. Yes, you're in a different country, but it's not a drastic change (I know many Canadians--not to mention Swedes--will be offended by this statement. Try not to take it personally! :-).

Other things I really like about Montreal is good restaurants (French and Indian are among my favorite cuisines), the old part of town, even though it's touristy, and Chinatown, which seems bigger and has a lot more stores than the one in Boston. It is also the city of Leonard Cohen, Julie Doucet and Drawn & Quarterly :-)

When I was a kid, we sailed up the St. Lawrence river on the bulk carriers my parents worked on (for more information on this see my Inbound 5 story, "The Sardine's Tale") on our way to the Great Lakes. I don't remember much of these trips, except stopping further up the river, at Niagara Falls, where we went to see the falls and the surrounding kitch. I also remember falling down from one shipdeck to another, a fall from which I still have a scar on my chin. But that's all a different (comic book?) story.

This time in Montreal, I decided to go to the Expozine for a few hours, with a box of Inbounds, Outbounds, Hellbounds and some of my own minicomics for trade. I was only there for about 4 hours, but it was a really cool experience, and I got to meet a lot of nice and interesting people, and on my trading spree I ended up with some neat stuff (for example an illustrated version of T.S. Eliot's poem, "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock," by Julian Peters, a local artist. The drawings are really beautiful and accompany the poem really well. In addition, Peters used buldings and street scenes in Boston as references for his drawings, so it just couldn't be more perfect! :-)

Back in Boston, I am working on a project, which I should try to get done pretty soon (illustrating a chapter of someone's graphic novel), and otherwise drawing cheesecake drawings of pretty ladies (preferably with some pink involved, the color I love to hate, or maybe hate to love...), which has been my favorite hobby for as long as I can remember. There are lots of crafts fairs and shows coming up this holiday season, you might see me at one or two, if I'm tabling for the Boston Comics Roundtable.

Inbound 5: Release Party!

Getting ready for the release party: hanging up the original drawings from the stories in Inbound 5

Atomic Bean Coffee Shop

The first six pages from my Inbound 5 story, "The Sardine's Tale." Pages 1 and 4 will be on display at Atomic Bean.

More on Inbound 5, the latest anthology from the Boston Comics Roundtable!

Friday, November 5 (yes, this Friday!) at 7-9 pm, we are having a release party for the book at the Atomic Bean coffee shop in lively Central Square (902-904 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge). The book will be on sale, artist and writers will be there to sign it, the artwork will be on the walls, and because it's hosted by a coffee shop, there will be access to coffee and pastries! Bring anyone you know who is interested in comics and/or food (Inbound 5 is the food issue, after all!).

Can't make it to the release party? Then order the book online:

http://www.bostoncomicsroundtable.com/inbound-5/

It makes a perfect gift for those foodie friends you have, who otherwise have all the kitchen gadgets you can think of!

Also: read our first review!

http://thirteenminutes.blogspot.com/2010/10/inbound-5-food-issue.html

Eat This: Inbound 5, The Food Issue

The latest anthology from Boston Comics Roundtable, Inbound 5 came out just in time for M.I.C.E., and it is dedicated to food. I wanted to post a picture of the cover here on my blog, because the watercolor picture (by Ellen Crenshaw) is awesome, and because I want you to know what you need to look for at your local comic bookstore! Is your comic bookstore not in the Boston area? Then you can order it from the BCR homepage:

http://www.bostoncomicsroundtable.com

We are going to hang up some of the original pages from the anthology at Atomic Bean Cafe (Central Square in Cambridge) this weekend and have a release party next week. More on this later!

Fall

Above is my Hellbound-poster, which you'll hopefully see around Boston, but in red, and with lots of information on it, like this: http://riverbirdstudios.blogspot.com/2010/10/hellbound-is-near.html Hellbound is both an event (Halloween -style party in Harvard Square, but with comics, sketch duels and lots of fun) and the name of a Boston Comics Roundtable anthology, dedicatet to New England horror stories. I submitted a story, Lady in Black, which you can read about here:

http://hellboundinboston.blogspot.com/2010/10/lady-in-black-by-line-o.html



Also, another Boston Comics Roundtable anthology that I've been involved in, Inbound 5 is out, which this time focuses on food. Read about it (then order it :-) on their website: http://www.bostoncomicsroundtable.com/inbound-5/ The book is in the same format as Inbound 4, and with gorgeous cover art by Ellen Crenshaw.



Other things I have done this fall: met nice, interesting people at M.I.C.E., where I had half a table, and strolled around Manhattan, where I for once had all the time in the world to do some sketching.

Pretty & Pink

The first four paintings (acrylics on 4x4" canvas) that I've made of pretty girls with pink background. Hopefully, I'll have about six to bring to M.I.C.E., where I will have half a table this coming Saturday. I love painting these, it's so much fun!

Greenland & Iceland

Sketches from Iceland

Nuuk, Greenland

Kapisillit, Greenland

This summer, I went to Greenland to visit a friend, via Iceland. I took about a million photos while I was there, the landscape in Greenland is amazingly beautiful, and reminds me of Norway, but--and I am reluctant to admit this in public--even more dramatic. Most of the sketches I did there were funny ones, describing what we did and where we went. In Iceland, however, I sketched as we drove around. We had rented a fourwheel-drive Lada (of all things!), that drove like a tank in the city, but was perfect for backroad driving. It was a bumpy ride on the unpaved roads, but I started the sketches in the car and finished them as we stopped along the way. The landscape in the interior of Iceland was very different from Greenland. The ground was barren, black, volcanic. Dramatic in its own way, and the clouds overhead seemed to be as much a part of the landscape as the ground, giving it also a shifting, restless character. This was not my first time in Iceland, but it seemed different somehow from when I first came here...probably because we took a tourbus back then, but drove around on our own this time. On those deserted roads, on a cold and windy Sunday, one can easily feel all alone in the world, lost in a strange and eerie landscape.

Postcard Project

This is one of the postcards which is a part of a bigger project called "What Am I Doing Here?" where I explore expectations of traveling. This is not a scan, but a photo, thus the quality is not so good, but you get the idea...

Childhood Nostalgia in the Merchant Marines

Right now, I am spending all the free time I have (and a large chunk of the not-so-free time, not to mention all the time-I-should-definitely-be-doing-something-else) inking the last pages of my Inbound 5 submission. Inbound 5 is all about food, and my story ("The Sardine's Tale") is a 10-page comic set on board a Norwegian bulk carrier in the mid-70's, told from the perspective of the chef's 5-year old daughter. There will be an abundance of food in the story (but no strawberry jelly), adventures in faraway restaurants, tall tales and cute pin-up girls. It's all a short-version tall tale of my own childhood in the Norwegian merchant marines, as seen through the typical nostalgic lens that seamen tend to remember those good old days.

Doggie Stroller

Today, we went for a daytrip to the cape and I saw (for the first time in my life) a doggie stroller. And it wasn't just an old-fashioned baby stroller used for a dog, no, it was an actual doggie stroller, designed for dogs (!) I have lived in the U.S. for ten years now, and I thought I had seen it all. But no...The funniest thing was when the dog caught sight of a rottweiler and an intense growling emerged from the stroller. I wanted to grab my camera and take a picture, but that would be rude, so I sketched the scene instead (and posted it on the internet). Maybe that's rude too. Oh well!

Evolution

Barcelona Souvenir

Another page from my sketchbook, this time inspired by my trip to Barcelona last summer. I fell in love with the city and the surrounding area (we went to two of our friends' wedding in Tortosa, a couple of hours by train down the coast, then to festivities in a mountain village nearby). I plan to do some lager drawings, cartoonish style, of interesting cityscapes, as soon as I have finished working on current projects (story for the upcoming Inbound anthology, #5 is the food issue, and stories for a webcomic).

Hellbound--A New England Horror Comic

If I've been absent lately, it's because I've been really busy. April just flew by, and now we're almost in May. One of the projects I worked on is a one-page story for Hellbound, the Boston Comics Roundtable horror-anthology, which I think is scheduled to come out in time for Halloween. I don't want to spoil things and post my whole page, but here's a panel:

Not scary? Oh, just wait! Besides, there will be plenty of awesome pages from local artists and writers that will make your skin crawl! More on this subject later...

(For more information on Hellbound: http://hellboundinboston.blogspot.com/ )

Drowning (in Boston)

This is a page from my minicomic, Dog Season, which I am posting because it just seems so appropriate with all the rain & floods we're having in Boston right now...

Overly Sweet

I'm not a big fan of cuteness, but I was inspired by a site, www.girlsdrawingirls.com that has all sorts of cute pin-up types on it. You just can't help being drawn in (literally).