Inuti mina bihålor. Inside my sinuses.

Näskanna.

Zonterapitofflor.

Morning in Mörtfors. Hope you had a nice one, too. Where you are.

Look at Emma Hanquist Illustration

And this solar panel bag!

A day at the office that many years ago was a dentist´s surgery. Top pic: Jakob works in the former waiting room. Pic 2: Monday meeting (we almost never have). Pic 3: I also love författare! Pic 4: A binder for Ritförlaget. The best thing about working with stuff for your own tiny publishing house is the freedom you feel when you have a space for your most personal ideas, and where they can bloom far away from the world of sales departments, shareholders and compromises. The most difficult is the reaching out-part and that channels like bookshops in cities and bookstores on the web are less and less interested in what the small publishers can offer. Pic 5: Lots of books. Pic 6: Ritförlaget is taking a walk. Royalty talk, maybe? Photo by Klara Schyberg.

It´s a big and very special day for Ritförlaget today. Jakob´s book is out! The book is the fourth in the history of my small publishing house Ritförlaget and the first book not made by me. Teckningar från Antarktis (Drawings from the Antarctic) is a wonderful illustrated journal from Jakob´s expedition to the South Pole in 2007/2008. The Swedish icebreaker Oden sailed to Antarctica for the second time ever and Jakob was on board thanks to the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat that since 1988 has offered artists to participate in research expeditions to the polar regions. (Read about the artists programme here!) Teckningar från Antarktis contains killer whales! Leopard seals! Tattoos! Stinking sperm whale bones! And of course; icebergs and penguins! 64 pages, colour, hard cover with textile backstrip. Text is in Swedish, but all the beautiful illustration makes the book interesting even without the words.

More about Teckningar från Antarktis in the webshop.

At the office; wish a sweet and pedantic autumn breeze would sweep by and clean the studio up, make some environmental changes and give me a photoshop lesson. I really, really would like to take command of the image management step in the book process. Learn how to make trustworthy scans of own illustrations for printing.
While waiting for that indoor breeze, I´m planting bulbs in the garden and amaryllis in pots.

En Photoshopkurs, någongång?

Någnting annat: kanske prova nya material, som det här?

Three small in-front-of-tv-drawings. Need programs like 2 and a half men when drawing. This does NOT work!

Salong För alla åldrar, svt Barnkanalen! Missa inte!

What I bought at Mieke Willems newly opened webshop. (Photos from the shop-site.)

Other nice things at:
Sarah Illenberger news
Laura Bellmont
Kiersten Essenpreis

A visit to a favourite neighbourhood café: Tofvehult. Another nice one is Affes café, Berga. Both places are open even after summer´s gone.

Two illustrations for BRIS, Children's Rights in Society. First pic, cover for the latest magazine, an issue about children growing up in alcoholic homes. Second pic is a earlier illustration about the problem with bullying in schools.

My (almost) daily walk, and I pass the stumps and the stable and the leaves on the trees are turning yellow.

Emma Rendel

Her Awkward Books

Autumn days. Plenty of prunes on the limbs of our very old prune tree. At the office I´m struggling with a new typeface. Work is in slooooow progress...

Analogical Things
Yokomono Studio
Itis edition

The book Törnrosa (Sleeping Beauty) is printed and out. (Also in my shop!) I like the idea of a book series of traditional folk tales where the illustrators are given total freedom in their work. (Earlier illustrators in this series have been Kristina Digman, Gunna Grähs and Tord Nygren.) For this book I have been able to work without doing any scetching first. Luxury! To have the time to make mistakes and the peace to work without interference from the outside world. The first posts about the book work were made a looong time ago, here and here. Text in Törnrosa is a traditional one, and not written by me. And it is only in Swedish yet.

Till alla er nyblivna föräldrar som vill att just ert barn skall göra framtida karriär som bilskolelärare! Här är namnförslagen för er!

To you parents who want your child to grow up and become a (Swedish) driving instructor! Here are the perfect names for your baby!

Cirkus Kievs bilskolelärarsketcher i P3.

Many car drivers seem to look at their driving in such an enviable and uncomplicated way. For myself, it´s as if some kind of remnant from the Stone Age has been left behind and forgotten somewhere deep inside my spinal marrow. When driving I suddenly sense, with my heart in my mouth, a strong feeling that this is SO, SO very wrong! Looking out of the front window I see motor vehicles driving towards me at full speed! And I realize that my car is also moving forward! 90 km/h! I want to stop at a safe place, wave a placard saying; STOP DRIVING! DON´T YOU KNOW IT IS DANGEROUS! YOU CAN GET YOURSELF KILLED! (Or maybe something a little bit more compressed.)

When I´m going somewhere further than to the boys´ school or to Willmans lanthandel, I spend time planning my drive. Where will I turn left (wich one of my hands is, by the way, the one to the left?), what will that crossing look like, what if parallel parking would be necessary? And so on. This, in spite of the fact that I so many times have been aware of the actual similarity between car driving and Zen Buddhism: 1. You can´t anticipate any coming moments when you take the wheel. 2. You have to stay in the present, open up your senses and be fully aware of things happening around you. 3. Focus. 4. Take each moment as it comes. 5. Stay patient.

(I really don´t know much about Zen Buddhism, so please excuse me if I´m totally up in the clouds...)

Ok, this is my story:
When I was pregnant with Harry I realized it was time for me to go for a driver´s licence. Me and Jakob were looking for a house, far away from bus line no 2 and I just had to grasp the nettle. During this time we rented a summer flat in Mörtfors, and close to here you could register for an intensive driver education. So for two weeks I perspired my way through the streets of Högsby and Oskarshamn, driving the dazzlingly white car of my driving school teacher Gunder. It was me and Kerstin, and we stayed in a row house in Högsby during this time. We were the only students of the driving school. I had nightmares every night. Woke up streaming with sweat after horrible dreams of me running over children, animals, old people... Miraculously I managed the driving test. Think the driving inspector felt sorry for me when I got stuck behind the steering wheel with my huge belly and didn´t manage to get out of the car.

Now I have had my licence for six years, I drive our Volvo almost every day and I still sometimes have those nighmares. But the best days I sense this wonderful feeling of being a kentaur; half woman, haft car. We are a perfect harmony. The roads are empty, the weather is fine. Not a sound from the carburettor. Other days (and they are sadly a bit more frequent) driving the car feels like wearing a very, very uncomfortable suit. Ugly, made by metal and with a bad smell of rotten bananas.

Today I have sent away my illustrations for a book I have been working on for a long time. They are now on their way to Rabén.
I´m feeling empty and strange, and instead of working I spend some time trying to find a new door to the car of my mother-in-laws.
I smashed it last week.
Laga.se is like heaven if you are looking for spare parts! (For your car.)

The book cover of this book above, Handbok för lastbilsföraren, is a very expressive one. Car driving is still a bit of a complicated subject to me. Maybe this week should be a therapeutical car blogging week!

(The small vehicle on the top pic is a super magnetic garbage removal truck. The Wegelius Bros are joining us at the office today.)

Staying at home, taking it easy after some days of illness, going through old photos. These are some kind of trolls that the children made some time ago. Sweet, aren´t they.

Have a fine weekend!

David Nessles blogg.
Femtitalsjakten.
(Both in Swedish.)