2011

A bit late, but happy New Year!!

Anyway, I've been busy trying to get something out of my holiday, drawing practice and various projects. Nothing really went according to plan, but here are some of the things I did get done. Some watercolor and gouache. Semi-happy with these..

Back to the new year - really looking forward to this year. Gonna do great things in 2011 :D

Jonas bm

The Encounter

Bobby Chiu will be interviewing Dice Tsutsumi in a week's time, and looking at his beautiful paintings inspired me to take out my acrylics late last night.

I don't think I've ever had this much fun with acrylics - never seemed to do as I wanted. Part of it is probably the new paper I'm using, made specifically for acrylics and oil. Plus, I think I respect the medium a little more than before. Hope it lasts :D

- Jonas

what a hurdle

So I just finished an application test for a Danish design school. It's been a two-week long creative rollercoaster ride, with plenty of ups and one big down last week when I had to change direction well over a week into it. It was tough. I've ended way up, though. Really happy with the end result. What I handed in, was a portion of my process, brainstorms, experiments, etc. and a finished 'product' to solve or comment on the 'problem' or issue I worked with. I ended up making illustrations for a book.

I'd love to show you, but I didn't have time to scan it and all I did manage to do was take some pretty awful pictures. I'll see if I can fix them up on the computer, but if not, I'm going to the school to get the thing back some time in August.

It was really hard to let it go.

Anyway, after this I finally had some time to just sketch and paint for myself, so yesterday, while watching an episode of Hercule Poirot (gotta love that Belgian!), I sketched some creatures.

First one, just pen on sketchbook paper. The others, pencil on cardboard with some watersolluble colored pencils for shading and white details. Fishels, I call them :D

Tomorrow, I have an application test at a school of animation, The Animation Workshop. Hoping it'll go well.

On Friday I'm going to Berlin for a week. Hoping to get time to sketch while down there. Leaving the laptop at home. Should be fun. We'll be visiting some designers and see the art community there up close.

See y'all in a week or so.

- Jonas

my little book of giant monsters - the second book

Okay, book two, 'my little book of giant monsters. I started off doing a lot of tests on style and subject matter and settled on giant monsters done in a mix of pen, watercolor and collage. This particular book was a lot of fun to do, thinking up names and jokes for each monster, as well as designing each monster. It was a great feeling to work so fast too and late into the night.

And I'll just tell you, it looks really really good in real life, it really does. I'm actually thinking about getting it printed like a proper book, just to try it. As it is, it's quite a beast to read - it's just difficult to turn the pages :D

Oh and you should know that I'm slowly uploading each page to my DeviantArt page, so use the link under the banner to check the monsters out in higher resolution.

Next up: all the other books.

i like potatoes - the first book

So this past week I've been making books. Like with the painting we did some time ago, this was a special offer, a class we don't usually have. I was planning to take it easy, relax with the books and get around to just having some fun, playing games, watching movies and reading books. Making books is, however, a lot of fun so I actually ended up spending both day and night making them.

Our first assignment was to make two books using some really thick cardboard. one accordion and one codex.

We'll start off with the accordion.

I basically just started drawing these creatures on the cardboard pages, figuring I'd find out what to make of the book later. Various details painted in with white gouache.

Then came the task of adding content, and I landed on writing small texts that could be the creatures' thoughts. The rhino-looking fellow thinks 'I like potatoes', for instance. It was a fun sollution, I thought.

See you later for book two.

- Jonas

Hellboy-ish

Did this way back on Monday, and it didn't come out the way I had planned - I messed up the red color pretty good and the underpants just didn't work in the end. I still like the design, though, especially the left hand, and I might redo it some day.

- Jonas

Tribal Creature

Continuing on with the watercolors. Think I should have stopped before the blue background. I only had a small brush, so covering the background evenly wasn't possible. Quite happy with the 'fro, though :D

Gonna keep going.

- Jonas

Clubs Robot

Last night I missed a CHIUstream that I shouldn't have - really wasn't happy about that, so I decided to watercolor a bit, something I haven't done in a long while. Nothing I did last night was any good, though, but I continued this morning and did this:

I really like it, and I hope to do more of this in the future.

In other news, I'm thinking of expanding my blogosphere (I think that's the word), and have more blogs, one for each creative purpose. You see, I used to write short stories, and I'd love to have a blog for that, plus one for ideas and such, just so I have somewhere to let it all out, and maybe one for projects of all sorts, games for instance, so I don't clutter up this here blog in particular. Also, I think the structure around here needs an overhaul. You'll notice that I've changed colors and such, but there's still some way to go.

Cheers!!

- Jonas

Gentle Dragon

Okay, so this is kind of a wip, because I want to paint in a background, I'm just afraid to mess it up. So right now, this is the finished piece. Here's hoping it won't be for long.

Done in gouache on box cardboard late last night. God I love gouache.

Something Traditional

Here's something I've been working on over the holiday, on and off, just to keep me at it.

Drawn with a technical pen on colored construction paper without pior sketching, and colored with some colored pencils, I had lying around. Getting it inside the computer was a hassle, but I survived :)