Earlier this year the publisher Natur & Kultur had a children´s book competition, with texts by three Swedish authors. The texts were looking for illustrations, and the winning illustrators were Emma Virke, Joanna Hellgren and my former colleague from Sthlm Illustration; Thomas Fröhling! They are all three shockingly talanted!
Congratulations!!!
My own illustrations above, to a nice text by Eva Lindström. (This contribution was disqualified. Illustrators name should be anonymous. My brain was somewhere far away from my head, when writing my name in squiggly letters on the coverillustration and even on the backstrip...)

Sculptor Johan August Gustafsson, Gustaf-Jon, 1852 - 1932. Old photo from J.A.G.S museum in Segerstad, Öland. Spread from the book Okända Mästare av Olle Nessle. (DN-rec här.)

Den Öländske Faraonen, Carlsson Förlag.

Mer om Gustaf-Jon.

Late this summer, we went on a car trip to Blekinge. On our way to Karlskrona these amazing wooden sculptures suddenly turned up outside the car window. In a garden, in a small village called Bredäng, they made us stop and stare.

Another place: Little Istanbul, on flickr.

If you come visit Mörtfors, you would soon notice the sculptures hiding in the gardens around the village. A roe deer peeps out behind a liliac bush, a gnome resting in a leaf heap, a stiff lynx appearing in the morning haze. I like them a lot.

Sculptures are made by Ivan Sällberg, born 1912, a former barber, who started working in cement after a snowman he had built for his children sadly melted, and he wanted to make the kids happy again.
In Solstadström, where he lived the last years of his life, you could meet them all; Astrid Lindgren, Olof Palme and his assassin, Snow White and the 7 dwarfs, the Laplanders outside their hut... And out in the reed, the King of Sweden is still happily fly-fishing. After Ivans death many of his sculptures landed here in Mörtfors, thanks to his daughter. And they fit in so well in the environment, filling the gap after Tarzan...

Still, many of the sculptures disappeared from Ivans sculpture garden after his decease. No one really knows where they are now.
And I can´t stop wondering. IF someone recognizes the work of Ivan, I would be so happy to know. Please contact me.
E-mail address above my link list.

This morning; a strong feeling that nature is getting closer! First; someone knocking on the terrace door. It was the climbing plant who wanted to get in. Then; J found a tiny grass snake on the floor in the hall, just outside the bathroom!!! (Yes, it´s true!) After having released it, I walked to work and realized that vegetation had moved closer the village, and almost taken over. And a sunflower was growing on the stairs to the office. Where will it end?

Big-city dwellers, look out for nature! Soon it´s knocking on YOUR door:)

Have a nice (and green) weekend!

In yesterdays mail: Latest issue of Tecknaren, and from a friend; 7 bulbs of my favourite spring flower, the Chess Flower! (Fritillaria meleagris) And this morning was so nice. The light and the haze
and a very happy woodpecker.

Tidningen Tecknaren kan köpas här. Senaste numret innehåller bl a en artikel om Jakob och mig, och om hur det är att arbeta långt från stan.

Still dreaming of that hen-house. Reading about hens in these two good books; Henkeeping by Jane Eastoe (Collins & Brown) and Hönsboken by Anders Jansson and Nina Östman (Prisma) with nice illustrations by Sara-Vide Ericsson.
Wanted! A small assortment of prefab hen-houses. Nice design, not too expensive, and easy to bring home to your garden. Carpenters out there; wouldn´t that be a good idea!? I think you could make a profit on this. (The hen-house on the last pic is a dream house for the affluent hen and her fastidious little family...)

My 7 best friends at work:

1. The greaseproof paper. I use it almost everyday, when I draw, for copying details from sketches.
2. The brown tape
3. My second brain - the 24 drawers and the 12 white collectors
4. My Epson Scanner (sadly broken and on its way out. I will miss its sweet and tiny sighing at the end of each scanning.)
5. The purple box, from Map.
6. My third brain - the piles. Containing current work.
7. My neighbour/colleague. Working in the next room. (No photo.)

This is what I would have seen if I looked out of the kitchen window here at the office, 60 years ago.

It is Friday AGAIN. How could it be possible?

Cover illustration for Desirada, written by the Guadeloupean author Maryse Condé. Typography by Åsa Nilsson. I like the goldprint.
A glimpse of it in the closeup.

O how I love her clothes! Elsa Schiaparelli. Link from Applejacks.

Spreads from a small book I made for my youngest son, who finds it difficult to separate the swedish Å, Ä and Ö from each other. Enjoy doing things like this! You work fast, have fun, and use both words and ink!
And you do it for a person you love.

Rag rugs outside one of the oldest houses in Mörtfors. B&w photo shows the Mörtfors artist Otto Jansson, who has just finished the wooden sculpture Tarzan (who nowadays is owned by the Swedish film director Jan Troell.) Fotot är lånat från byns hemsida. Tackar, tackar!

It´s a pity so few wear sleeve links these days. I like these. And these.

These Bauhaus people... It looks as if they are having a good time.

The Bauhaus Archiv, Berlin

Bauhausinspiration on NYPL Digital Gallery.

The New York Public Library; such a good place for inspiration! Nice Russian book covers here and here.

The village Mörtfors where I live, early in the morning. Second pic shows a sweet and mooing escapee. He jumped over the fence and suddenly he stood outside our house, confused, calling out for his mother. Then he found my Jerusalem artichoke and ate all the plants in silence. A little bit later mother and son was happily reunited.

Something else: Sandra Juto shared a link to a site where you could make a font from your handwriting. Here´s another good one. Fontifier. Not free, but still not expensive!

OCH Knarket i P1. Bra radio.

This time of year is a healthy time for restless souls. Still some flowers to pick, and in the woods; all those chanterelles! Things are growing slowly. Prunes take their time to ripen. Nature is good therapy when you feel unbalanced and impatient. Everything is in such slow progress at the moment, also at my worktable. Wish I had a parallel life where I could finish the things waiting on the list in my head. I´m a slow painter. The brushes are getting too tiny. And the sheets of paper are suddenly very huge.

Some people MUST have access to some kind of parallel life:
Shiori Matsumoto

PS. Fortfarande ett par timmar kvar att bjuda på denna!