I like to put a lot of thought into my work, designs and art. Proportions, colour, shapes and size are all important in their own way. I got a question about how I have made my pattern inspired by Josef Frank. The starting idea was awoken by the lecture about him the other day and my interest in his work, that I have come across before. All images and shapes that I meet in everyday life also have their impact on what one wants to use in the next design one is going to do. You want your artwork or design to awaken a thought or feeling with the viewer… or maybe several emotions and thoughts. Hopefully - even want to take them on an emotional journey and that they will carry that image with them for the rest of their life. Even a little pictogram - you want it to make the right impact suitable for the occasion within it’s genre.

Back to how I made the pattern. I very often like to sketch on paper with an HB pencil. Just to get the right feeling and flow to the idea that is being born. Then, in this case I inked the graphite drawing and scanned that into my computer. There I start redrawing the work in Adobes Illustrator so I have a vectorized file - since it probably will be used for print. It also is an easy way to work with shapes and sizes - if you want to get a quick feel for the design, if it needs to be bigger in some parts or smaller in others. So my main goal is to get the shape right – the flow in the picture – the right feeling. After that I coloured the pattern’s main shape and gave it some extra circles and dots. Here I’m totally up in my own idea – but somewhere in the back of my head I have thoughts about the inspirational lecture the other day. Finally I try out the pattern’s main-shape to see how it works as a complete pattern.

Now you might want to order a pattern from me or even get started on one by yourself. Set your mind free and get going.

Shapes and form can easily be caught by the eye. Masks and facial expressions are strong symbols that the eye can interpret in several, maybe thousands of ways.

I travelled to British Colombia many years ago. There I had the opportunity to see very many different masks made by artists in that region – the North West Coast. Fascinating styles and art-pieces showing expressions and feelings in lots different appearances. Some of the masks there made you wonder what the creator wanted to express. Your mind toys with heaps of ideas. Maybe even more when they were anonymous - not knowing who has made the mask or what it was for or meant to represent. A book I was given under my stay there, if you ever come across it, I truly recommend entitled “Down from the Shimmering sky”. It has many beautiful pictures of masks in it.

The mask, sketched in pencil and coal, which you see here, I would say is inspired by this trip to BC and of course the book too. The roaring waterfalls and the high mountains – I’ll have to tell you more about that adventure some other time. The mask here has a more futuristic look too - so a nice mix of experience and knowledge from the past…

I have made a wall-paper for the laptop too – (as you can see in the wall-paper menu.)

As I mentioned the other day I made a trip to Canada many years ago. I walked between Calgary and Vancouver through ”The Rockies” (The Rocky Mountains). I didn’t walk all the way – fortunately. Otherwise I might still be wondering around in the mountains. I had the great opportunity to hike in some of the immense national parks and very sacred areas of British Columbia. The nature and wild life there are incredible. The trees are several fathoms in circumference and pointing towards the sky. Birds and bears showed up here and there. The bears actually showed up at one of the hotels we stayed at - not exactly where one would think to see them.

We walked under waterfalls, through woods and up steep mountain sides. Lakes were in toothpaste green. Just a super rush for inspiration - as you can tell by me still talking about it. I will tell you more about those adventures in the future. For now, we are looking at a bird-face mask. To give the same emotional feeling as the last one I have sketched it in pencil and charcoal. I kept the black and white feeling too - just so you see the shapes extra clearly.

The conference excursion I had the possibility to join was a geological one. This opened up a whole new realm of time to me! I discovered yet more sources of inspiration - the mysteries of past nature and wild–life from millions of years ago – all wonderfully preserved in the rugged rocks and majestic scenery – but that’s a topic for another day!

Masks are very strong symbols of action and force. This one is designed to give a more aggressive and fierce approach - one that could scare and terrify the viewer or approaching human. An over-natural lively being is the spirit’s signals to the outer world. Even though the soul behind the mask can have a totally different intention - somehow one chooses to wear it and give that outer look. I’ve made the eyes bigger than the other masks that I recently made to intimidate even more than the other masks. There might even be several of these aggressive types in a deep forest such as the ones in western Canada. So I think this mask rounds up the theme of the three masks I have made this last week. I have made them in the same manner to give support to each other. Masks have fascinated many – especially collectors.

This idea for the third mask came to me while wandering off in thoughts about the last part of the trail I wandered in BC – especially the last part before reaching the top, where I had the opportunity to see the newest finds the research-group had made. The finds showed that what were previously believed to be three extinct animals turned out to be parts of one much larger animal… For hundreds of years mankind has thought these to be three and all of a sudden – they are found to be one.

I concentrated on making two lizard-dragon-like manga cartoons last week. This time I’m sticking to the manga-style of drawing but I have changed to a more grim and fierce look. This robot-like cartoon is a battle robot or a transforming robot – meaning that it can change shape and become different kinds of fighter-robots – like, for example, a fling aeroplane type or a fast moving street-fighter. This one has been hurt in battle and lost part of its body. I have named it robot 54 – and I have also given it that number printed on its chest. The colours are grey and steel and highlighted with orange - inspired by fighter-planes. You can see the cables hanging down from the upper part of the torso that have been connected to the robot’s legs. He is crunching his fists to show some slight emotions over the pain he might be in.

Using the manga style of drawing here gives a futuristic look but still the surreal feeling of cartoon art. I have made this first in pencil as a sketch and then inked the drawing and moved it into Photoshop to colour it.

Hope you enjoy the wallpaper I made too.

There is a lot of art made by graffiti-artists throughout the world. It started thousands of years ago with murals and wall-carvings. A few lost ones were probably carved in wood. I guess one can say that graffiti has many ancestors and there are even more ways of interpreting where and who started the graffiti craze. Many would probably debate and say that it is vandalism but I would like to say that a lot of it is art. Looking back at the days when the kids in school ran around with their ”black-books” and had heaps of nice sketches of potential murals, hole-cars and wall-art. A lot of graffiti often wants to debate society…

The sketch I am showing you this time is a graffiti artist clinging on to a banister on a subway-train. Might be the night he is of to paint the town. He has a scarf partly over his face and backpack filled with cans… Hopefully all the favourite caps are in his pockets. A spray-can came in the picture to – more like a symbol for one of the main things you need for your work of art. His street-name is ”Ph”. Now keep the streets clean but never forget about what is art.

Spray-canart has really evolved through the years. I remember early pieces they were impressive then but maybe today they are more “cult” than masterpieces. Still, there were a lot of good talented artists out in the world. I guess the thrill was there and showing of your piece next morning.

Every day is still not giving you the opportunity to make a great masterpiece or whole-car but you will have a sketch-book lying around that you can fill with some cool-art to be.

I made a graffiti-rabbit that is in the making of his latest creation. He is thinking about the final touches? After a whole night spraying away he is pretty tired as you can see. The eyes and the unshaven face say a lot about how the night has been. The cigarette is hanging out of the mouth and the smoke slowly rising. The big can gives the feeling that it is extra heavy? I might show his work of art some other day.

There is a pretty cool site called Graffiticreator.net that every month has some art competition going. You can submit your mural or your sketch and people can vote and finally t