TRØYSTEBOKA STORYBOARD #1

I’m breaking the first story into storyboards now, this one is quite difficult to work with because I don’t really understand the story. Oh I read it and understand the words, but I don’t understand what the author is trying to SAY. My editor is off on a job related trip so I hope she can explain it to me when she gets back.



But even if I don’t get the story, it is still very visually written with talking trees and dark forests, love it!


In the top one see I have the rhythm/pace and reading direction wrong, have to deal with that in Sketches Round #2. And the impaled dolls on walking sticks have to move down a bit on the page, so not as to break up the text too much.

(Yes, impaled dolls, I too was a bit puzzled by this since it’s a childrens book. I love that sort of cute/scary stuff, but…yes this is where I got a bit lost, because there is no explanation why they’re part of the story. Maybe I shouldn’t focus too much on them when I draw it out.)

For this story I’m making the setting much darker than I’m used to, this will be fun to expriment with.

FUN WITH HISTORYBOOKS

Yes I know it’s not a luth, but it sounded better.


I have several books about the history of fashion and clothing, and I often use them as reference when I illustrate. The imagery in the books often has some interaction with eachother, and for some time I have been thinking that it would be fun to make them into cartoons.

These are sketches quickly put together in photoshop, but it would be fun to cut them out by hand like I did with my old die-cuts.

SKETCHES “TRØYSTEBOKA”

These pages are from my sketchbook. I’m working on the different concepts for each of the 20 stories for the book on Skald Forlag. The top one here is about a girl that is given the most wonderful balloon from her parents, and (I hope I’m allowed to do this) I had an idea that the guy they buy it from is the old man from UP. Even if this event is just a minor part of the story.

The writer also has set some part of the story in a car, and since I tend to dislike to draw “modern” things like mobile phones and playstations I usually draw them with a twist. Instead of putting the characters in a mundane Ford Mondeo, I want them to live in a Boardwalk Empire/Charleston-world, with the style and fashion of the days, driving T-Fords, all with a touch of steampunk in it.

This one has a fantasy creature in it that lives in a tree trunk and drinks soda. The author said he had a face like bark, so now I’m trying to make this look like bark without making him look like he has a very strange and unpleasant disease.


For two of the stories one of the main characters is a cat. Here I’ve studied photos of cats and how other people have drawn them, you might recognise Mutts and the two headed sigarette smoking cat from Transmetropolitan?

The button-eyed cat is all mine, drawn from a photo of the most ridiculously cute kitten. I’m not to keen on cats, and I dreaded starting to study how to draw them, but after a while I was really enjoying it! The have such versatile body language and attitude, and it was a lot easier than I first thought.


In this story I’m playing with the pysical size of the characters to convey the “emotional size” of how much they mean to eachother. To separate the two slightly similar cat-stories from eachoter in the book, I want this cat to be HUGE.

These pages were the ones with least writing on them, I think I am revealing to much of the stories if I publish all my notes. I really need to sort out with my publisher how much I can actually tell

THE WEEKLY MONSTER

A few months ago I was in a polkadotted period where everything I drew, the music I listened to and the concerts I went to, were all rockabilly and surf. I think I might be heading in that direction again I started dancing Lindy Hop and Swing a few years ago, and I love the style and music asscociated with this.  Yesterday we went to see Hipbone Slim and The Kneetremblers, WHAT a great sound they had. I’ve been listening to them all day today while doing housework and photographing inspiration from art books. I felt like drawing something polkadotted again. I dwelled on a Mark Ryden book, so while listening to surf and looking through Mark Ryden’s sombre imagery this little creature was spawned.

MONSTERS AT BAJAZZ-11

 

9th and 10th of April it’s time for another round of “Bajazz”, Bergen Jazzforum’s jazz festival for kids. The festival has been a great success with both kids and parents over the years, and keeps high quality concerts with established jazz artists every year. This year I know Datarock has been booked:)

I have been invited to give a drawing course for kids (and they parents if they want to) during the festival, where the goal is to learn how to draw really scary monsters. I have given courses like this a few times, and it’s really good fun to learn what and who the different monsters are.

The pictures above are from a course I gave in Aurland at Nynorske Litteraturdagar two years ago. One of the kids there was just about 3 or 4 years old, and was very concentrated about her work. It took her almost 20 minutes to complete an intrikate shape-thingy not far from what Miro did in his heydays, and as the interested teacher I am, I asked her what she had drawn and that I thought it looked really interesting and nice.

She looked at me for a few seconds, and her reply was unforgettable: “ You know… I have NO idea.” And then got up and left the table.

I had a really hard time trying to keep myself from bursting out laughing:D

Yay to monsters!

OLD CHILDREN’S BOOKS

My parents live in Os, (yes, Oz!), and today after delivering some illustrations to the hospital, I went visiting them. My mum knows I’m doing research for the children’s books I’m working on, and she had found these treasures for me today. It’s both her and my old books, and when I saw them now I remembered them so well! I thought I had brought most of them with me when I moved, but apparently not, these pictures here only show the tip of the iceberg.






I sort of see where my facination for cross-dressing flamingoes derives from


What a surprise, I’ve done two illustration tasks/jobs with photographing my handmade dolls that look a bit like these. I honestly didn’t remember this book until now. I jut realized how important it is to give kids quality reading, and how much of what we experience when we are kids actually effects us.





Hahaaaaaaa!

….and then we made a pie.

DONATION FOR CHILDRENS HOSPITAL

Tomorrow I’m visiting the childrens’s surgery department at the hospital here. I’ve asked the local hospital if they were interested in some of the pictures I made for “Eventyrboka” a few years ago, and they said they are just finishing two new rooms at the childrens department and would love to hang the illustrations there.

The pictures here are leftovers from the two exhibitions I had with the books I’ve made, and now they are just collecting dust in my office. Some of the pictures ony work when they hang together, and I don’t want to exhibit these a second time. And I never quite found a setting in wich to use or sell them, I usually make new imagery for each shop adapted to the kind of clients they have, and when I plan exhibitions I want to bring out new drawings.

I’ve thought about it for a long time that I wanted to do something for the childrens hospital. Or hospitals in general. I think maybe it’s because my dad has been a frequent visitor at the different departments replacing hips and kidneys and all sorts the last few years. I’ve seen so many horriby boring corridoors and waiting rooms, and it strikes me every time; A hospital still is a place were you are sick, not a place were you become well. The nurses and all the people working there are doing such a great job, that I really feel like showing my gratitude. 

Now I’m packing up, I’m so excited to see the people and the rooms at the hospital tomorrow.

Tadaa:)

KILLER KLOWNS RESEARCH

I’m doing research for “Trøysteboka” which is going to be released in September. I haven’t got all the stories from the authors yet, but since the ones so far have similar main characters, (mum, dad, child..), I want to try to make each story look very different. Last time I worked with “Eventyrboka” I had the same problem, but I solved it by making each setting a unique environment, and base the charcters in a world that was never mentioned in the story. This might seem odd, but there is only so many 8-yr old boy characters you can reinvent yourself with. One of them ended up as a robot, lucky for me the author loved it.

This time I want to make the worlds even more disitinct, and have picked myself some favorites that I hope the editor and authors will love too. If I can make them fit though. I recieved the plot for one of the stories that could fit really well in a circus or clown based world, but maybe when I get the full story this will be a complete mis-match. But then I’ll just save it for something else.

The sketches were made while watching Killer Klowns From Outer Space, a kult-movie with the glorious 80’s fascination with outer space and the future. If you like scary clowns and candy coloured props and settings this film is worth a watch.

Killer Klowns 4 Ævvah

HOW TO: RAINBOW CUPCAKES

Barbarella and me are participating with a fanzine at Prøverommet/Teatergarasjen’s “HEIM” on 11th of April at Knipsu. The fanzine is dedicated to how-to’s for cupcakes in different medias like felt, polymer and paint, and is going to cover other important topics that reflect our interests. I took these pictures today for use in the fanzine. I wasn’t sure whether this would work, we just used the idea from multicoloured toothpaste. The buttercream icing is laid out on baking paper.

My little pony, My little ponyyyyyyyyyyy

THE WEEKLY MONSTER

Today’s monster is the terrible concept “Newly Washed Trousers”.