I’m about half way trough with the new Monster Book on Skald Forlag. I started inking the originals about two weeks ago, and here is a quick peek at Tiril from one if the stories, swimming around unaware of tiny sea monsters settling in her hair.

This us such a good stage to be at in a book project. All sketches done and approved, and I’m inking away and enjoying the process. The illustrations for the inside of the book are due end of June. Not far away.

“Just keep swimming, just keep swimming”.

Finished and sent off an illustration for the next issue of “Barn i Byen”.

Tested wether I should have a striped desk front or not.

Decided on green grass instead, even if it looks a bit dark.

Accidentally looked through old work when I was looking for something else.

What the new front looks like. Not completely finished, but this was a spontaneous change since I haven’t got time to fix it up properly. It couldn’t stay plywood any longer.

Plus I finally got some paperwork done, cut paper for the monster book illustrations, completed the last monster sketches, ordered prints for a customer, and had a small meeting with a colleague at Bryggen.

I needed a normal office day like this badly. No big disturbances or crazy stuff happening on the side:) Just working evenly through the day. The last few weeks have been filled with playing “Trollkrittet”, doing whole day workshops with my designer and editor, and other fun things. But then I learn to appreciate the calm days too:)

Maison Mat & Vin sent me a brief I was well suited for:) “Spring, party & Champagne”! I sketched by hand lots of thumbnail sketches, and after a few rounds with the editor we landed on a wedding/snotty waiter/cherry three-themed one.

The deadline was in five days, so I had to work quickly since it looked like the drawing would have a high level of detail. The sketch process continued with me drawing out in pencil the different elements, scanning and moving them around on the page until we found the version we both liked. Lost count of how many versions.

Two women? One woman? Snotty waiter? Happy waiter? Flowers? More flowers? Less flowers? More party? More Champagne? Two tables? One table? What flowers are in the vases? Yellow hair, red hair, pink hair, blue hair? Mustache? No mustache? Stripes, polka dots, mesh? Blue trousers, pink trousers, yellow vest, pink vest? Decisions, decisions. It’s good to have an editor, because if you start thinking about “what they want” without getting any straight answers, you might use a lot more time, and even start censoring yourself, which is never a good thing. Usually my editors like a bit of crazy.

Picking colors for the drawing from my own photos of spring in Bergen.

When we landed on a sketch, I opened it up from Dropbox on my iPad, left my computer, and started drawing out the original drawing in ink and watercolor.

I drew all the elements out to scan one by one, different from last time I did a drawing for this magazine. Then I had time to draw the illustration out as a whole piece. (Which is actually sold already to a lovely couple, that also owns quite a few of my big haired ladies from before.)

I had to puzzle the piece together in Photoshop, and since I had only two days left after the sketch process, there was no room for mistakes or starting the inking process over again.

The finished illustration is in the Maison Mat & Vin spring issue, think it might be in shops now:)

Happy Easter:)

My Wacom tablet died, I probably shook it to death with my yellow bike on cobblestones. While waiting for my new one I’m using this pink car-mouse with flashing tail lights, while working with sketches for Maison Mat & Vin. Very high tech equipment.

The view from my home office corner while listening to Richard Hawley – Love of my life.

The yellow lamp that accidentally followed me home one day.

And Vaas Montenegro from Far Cry hiding in the jungle with his ukulele.

This piece of plywood was turned into a counter this Friday. I was having the flu and up to my neck in monster sketches and had to stay home, but my boyfriend was the perfect gentleman and helped out with the build. Or there wouldn’t have been a counter for the opening Saturday:)

I can’t wait to start using this desk! A bit of white paint and a decal on the front, whooooa:)

I threw out the green grass carpet, it was such a hassle to clean, but I’m keeping patches of green instead. (I’ll take some pictures of that later, I’m not done with that part yet.)

Gave away some shelving to some nice students.

The picture underneath is what it looked like when I left Wednesday evening, Thursday and Friday was spent being ill and working with the monster book.

The wall before doors were fitted and pictures hung.

There is still quite a lot left to do:) I didn’t have time to photograph the end result because of all the lovely visitors Saturday, but it looked alright. I (of course) had prioritized the sketching progress for the monster book, so I didn’t finish as much as I wanted to. Monsters will always come first, gallery second. I really want my monster book to be the best one I’ve made.

I still got flowers for the grand opening:D

This Saturday at from 11 until 16 I’ll be in my gallery drinking bubbles surrounded by balloons and generally celebrating:) You’re more than happy to come join me:D

This week has been filled with so much fun stuff that I shouldn’t feel guilty about not being further outdoors than my balcony this sunny Sunday. (But I still do. Curses.)

Colored in a lady that I inked maybe a year ago, and wrote some more on my own monster story.

Played my new obsession “Ni No Kuni”, that I think might be the most beautiful PS game evvah. I loved Final Fantasy IX’s “back-to-fairytale-gaming”, but it all went downhill when they discovered football in FFX, the idiots. _Finally_ the gameplay I love is back, with sweeeeet visuals from Studio Ghibli. This looks very promising!

Actually it might be even worse that I played the first hour of this game while it was still sunny outside, so I had to share it on Instagram with the (translated) tag #TheOnlyPersoninTheWorldNotAtMountFløien.

The upcoming week is filled with even more fun stuff than the last, and on Friday I’m delivering most of the sketches for the Monster Book. And Saturday I’m reopening my gallery:) Jup, needed this day.

The last few Sundays have been spent knowing I can do _whatever I want_ and have been doing everything from sketching just for fun, reading books about illustration techniques, playing around in After Effects, continuing on my own children’s book story, or strutting around in the sun doing whatever.

The line between what feels like work and what feels like play or interesting studies is quite thin at the moment, so far today I’ve watched a video about how difficult it is to price your work, pinning away at Pinterest, updated my LinkedIn profile, read blog posts and being inspired by Media Molecule’s studio in Guildford, fiddling around with the idea of making a silly video with my nonsense group “Gunvor, Morten and Ivar Band”, or an illustrated book about how to get your dad to eat more vegetables. He scared the shit out of us this week by ending up in hospital with severe flu and memory loss. Phew, luckily he is getting a bit better, although the worry around aging parents are still there. So I haven’t been able to work very concentrated this week because of that! I might or might not end up following any of these lines of thoughts, but it’s nice having time to just let my mind wander in the colorful tropical waters of Side Projects. (Here is an example of how my Pinterest sessions lead to some fun interior storyboard sketches for The Monster Book.)

I see that there is a angry mob out there against Procrastination, but I guess they don’t really see the value in letting your mind wander to reach new sources of inspiration, explore new directions or tools for your work and maybe develop as an artist. In one article about the hatred of “not-getting-shit-done” I read that Spotify(!) was a huge time consumer, and I was completely gobsmacked. But I guess it’s what you make of it, and people are different. I spend some time each week making new playlists for specific tasks so that I can work faster or more inspired, and I know the value in it when I see how much more I produce or how long I can work. And no one can accuse me of not being productive.

Serving me “truths” about how internet steals valuable work time from me is apparently meant to make me feel guilty and pay a coach and start going to talks about how to manage your time, and in that way certainly not getting work done. But again, people are different and react differently to social media or other diversions, and addictiveness can hit in any media or form.

I guess trying no to feel guilty about it is a start (as long as you meet deadlines), or channel your internet addictions to pages that teach you something useful or inspire you. But these are scary grounds to tread since people are so different, periods of work overload can crash even the most structured mind, and certainly, how our minds work are very individual.

Now I’m going to compile a spotify playlist consisting of smooth blues guitar tunes, starting with Bjørn Berge, since I fell in love with his voice in a concert this Friday, and enjoy the tunes while sketching a load of monsters. Maybe one of them ends up having qualities I might use for something:)

Happy procrastiworking Sunday!

The picture is from earlier today when we were transporting our props from my gallery to a storage unit at Wrap. We got a feeling of what it will be like packing and unpacking the show, chatting in the front seat about children’s literature, and getting to see new places in Norway:)