Nina Johansson

One of the sheds on the island. For the pattern to the right, I used some kind of ventilation (?) grid that I found in a junk pile in the shed.

20 x 19,5 cm, watercolours on Fabriano Artistico 300 gsm rough grain watercolour paper.

This is not a deformed guitar, it´s a (deformed) ukulele, the craziest instrument on the planet. Bring one of these to any situation with people in it, and everybody starts smiling. No one can stay sour in the same room as a ukulele, and you can be sure they will want to try to play.

Ukuleles are totally un-threatening, gentle, fun, a little goofy – and STILL completely possible to play serious music on. It´s small, fits into almost any bag. Weighs nothing. Costs almost nothing. Easy to learn a few chords on to get started. In short – the perfect companion. Every human being should own one, it would make the world a softer place.

14 x 11 cm, pencil, Copic markers and black ink pen on bleedproof marker paper.

Nope, I didn´t disappear. Work just got a little hectic, so I let the blog rest for a while. Soon time for a long vacation, though, so I don´t worry too much about it.

I´ve been playing around with these impossible but funny Copic markers for a bit. You know how markers are always impossible because they bleed through the paper? Well, get the right kind of paper and you´ll have good fun with them! I bought a pad of really smooth and bleedproof marker paper, and now I am learning some tricks with these fantastic pens.

For example: don´t draw black lines and then try to colour them in (as I almost always do with other techniques) – the markers will solve the black ink and everything will be a mess. Black lines go on as a last detail.
And: even if you don´t draw over the black pen, you can still make a mess – as in this drawing of a Swedish table classic (Bregott butter). I can´t really control these fellas, and I kind of like it. They keep surprising me.

15 x 11 cm, pencil, Copic markers and black pen on bleedproof marker paper.

Two posts on the same day! Not a usual habit of mine, but I thought I´d post this fresh on the right day.

It´s the first of May today, and in Stockholm the International Worker´s day is celebrated with several street demonstrations organized by the political parties to the left. I took a bike ride through town, passing by three different demonstrations. It must be a logistic nightmare for the people who draw the maps for these marches – they all take place simultaneously, and they all want to be close to the city center. The whole town is like a huge street festival with orchestras, drums, red flags, demonstration signs and people shouting, singing, marching.

I sat on a little doorstep on Kungsgatan drawing this while the Social Democratic party marched by.

13 x 17 cm, Lamy Safari with Lexington gray ink and watercolours on sketchbook page.

The view out the window in the same café as in the last post.

10 x 15,5 cm, Copic Multiliner SP and watercolours on sketchbook page.

Thank you all so much for your comments on my three exhibited paintings, they are all very much appreciated! There is no way I will have time to answer each and every one of your comments, since they are so many, but please know that I have read them all and I am very grateful for your encouragement. Thank you.

The drawing is from Wayne´s coffee in my hometown Umeå in northern Sweden. I spent the Easter holidays there, and had a really good time visiting family and friends.

13 x 15,5 cm, Copic Multiliner SP and watercolours on sketchbook page.

The third and last of the paintings in the exhibition at Edsviks konsthall.

20 x 20 cm, watercolours on Arches 300 g watercolour paper.

This is the second painting from the exhibition (see the previous post). All the images are inspired by the island in Northern Sweden where I spend much of my summers, though they are not exact depictions of the place. I figured that if I choose a subject that I know well, I can concentrate on the watercolours and experiment around this theme.

20 x 20 cm, watercolours on Arches 300 g watercolour paper.

I wrote in an old post some time ago that I had made some small paintings that I didn´t want to show just yet, since I had some plans for them. I thought I´d tell you now that what I did was to send three of them into a juried watercolour exhibition, and they were all accepted! So now they are all up at the National Watercolour Salon at Edsviks Konsthall, just north of Stockholm. (I would put a link here, but their site seems to be down today for some reason.)

This is my first serious try to exhibit any of my work, so I´m thrilled that it all worked out. I´ll post the other two paintings in the next two days.

20 x 20 cm, watercolours on Arches 300 g watercolour paper.

Drawing a skeleton together with my students. I find the details intriguing, can´t believe that´s the way we all look inside…

13 x 17 cm, pencil on sketchbook page.