Nina Johansson

Sometimes the internet is fantastic, because it lets you connect with people you never would have met otherwise. In Rome, I had the opportunity to meet up with Barbara Bacci from the online EDM-group. We spent some time together and went out drawing in the ghetto, where Barbara found us this amazing spot with a lot of  interesting angles and textures. Now and then passers-by stopped and talked for a bit, which is always nice (and always makes me wish I knew some more languages). We drew until it started getting dark. It is going to take some time before I can do that again – Stockholm is still full of snow…

Check out Barbara´s sketch of the same subject here, and please don´t miss all her fantastic animal drawings!

Thank you Barbara for a great time, it was worth a million to meet you! : )

17 x 20 cm, Lamy Safari with Noodler´s Lexington grey ink and watercolours on Fabriano Rosapina paper (sketchbook page).

Rome offers an enormous amount of nice spots to draw, and no matter where you go you´ll find something inspiring. It would be perfectly possible to draw something in one spot, then just walk around the next corner to find your next subject, turn another corner to draw something new, and so on. It never ends.

Of course, with limited time, you have to choose. I liked the ghetto a lot, because of it´s sometimes very odd angles and rugged textures that seem to surprise you everywhere.

I sat down on a doorstep to draw this, a very narrow part of a house that really intrigued me. I just love the funny way this was built, with the tiny supports under every floor (click to see the image bigger if you can´t see them).  And who lives behind that striped curtain up there? It would be really interesting to see the interior of this building…

10 x 20 cm, Lamy Safari with Noodler´s Lexington grey ink and watercolours on Fabriano Rosapina paper (part of sketchbook page).

Another drawing from Rome. Top left is not my work, it´s a ticket to the old Fori Imperiali (don´t know if that´s grammatically correct, but you know the area I´m talking about). Goodlooking, though.

17 x 20 cm, Lamy Safari with Noodler´s Lexington grey ink and watercolours on Fabriano Rosapina paper (sketchbook page).

We went to Rome for a week to get a taste of spring. End of February is when you start craving spring in Stockholm, so Rome seemed like a perfect choice. We got some really warm and sunny days, and didn´t get any of the horrible storm over Europe. (Click the images for a larger view.)

My baggage got lost during the flight, though, and when I got it back after four days all my make-up (not that much, but still) and my Noodler´s Lexington Grey ink was gone. I can understand the ink, but I´m still wondering who took my old make-up…

17 x 20 cm, Lamy Safari with Noodler´s Lexington Grey ink and watercolours on Fabriano Rosapina paper (sketchbook pages).

We drove 700 kilometers today, through a cold and snow-covered Sweden. I grabbed the opportunity to do some sketching in the car, since I was not the one driving at the moment.

15 x 8 cm, pencil on Fabriano Rosapina paper (sketchbook page).

It´s been quiet here for a while, I had to make an unplanned journey to my old hometown Umeå. Unfortunately I didn´t have much time for drawing up there, but waiting for flights at Arlanda and Umeå airports gave me some excellent opportunities to take the sketchbook out of the bag and get some People Practice. I need it badly…

13 x 18 cm, Lamy Safari pens with Noodler´s Lexington Grey, Fox Red and Hunter´s Green ink on no-name sketchbook paper.

This is where we spent our two days in Värmland – in a small red cottage with white corners, the archetype of Swedishness. The weather was fantastic, Swedish summer at it´s best, and the only thing that disturbed the idyll was the fact that I can´t spend more than 24 hours in a place like this before my allergy goes berserk.

18 x 15 cm, Copic Multiliner SP and watercolours on Fabriano Artistico hot press watercolour paper.

We took a two-day trip to Värmland, in Western Sweden, towards the border of Norway, where my in-laws live. The road there isn´t too interesting if you have seen it a few times, but here and there it curves so nicely through the hills and the forests, like a soft ribbon, and I just had to try to capture it on paper.

13 x 10 cm, Pitt artist brush pens on Fabriano Artistico hot press watercolour paper.