Nina Johansson

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).

There is a lot of snow in Stockholm right now. A lot. Some say more than it´s been in the last thirty years. The day before yesterday the underground gave up because of the cold, along with the commuter trains, which of course strikes hard on a city like Stockholm. Some people got angry, others got dressed and started walking.

I didn´t draw this from life, -16° C is below the limit for my fingers. I took a reference photo while walking to a station where they said the underground to town might work. Cold, yes, but it was an incredibly beautiful winter´s day.

17 x 11 cm, Uni pin fine line and watercolours on Fabriano Rosapina paper (sketchbook page).

In periods of less time for drawing, I like to do these “week drawings”. This one lasted for almost three weeks , but I usually try to fill a page in one. It feels good to know I have an ongoing drawing that I can just keep working on anytime, without pressure to finish anything, and without sticking to a certain subject. And after a week or so, I try to tie the whole thing together with colour or crosshatching or something. Quite fun, and a good feeling to at least draw a little, even if I don´t have much time.

16 x 19 cm, Lamy Safari with Noodler´s Lexington grey ink and watercolours on Fabriano Rosapina paper (sketchbook page).

Happy holidays! I hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas!

8 x 9 cm, Uniball eye pen and watercolours on Fabriano Rosapina paper (sketchbook page).

Found a new toy today in a store, a water soluble pencil. I think I actually had one of those once, but I never really used it. I bought two, a 2B and a 4B, and played around a bit. I like the way the water smoothes out the graphite without rubbing out the lines completely. You can keep working on top of the washed surfaces with more graphite, getting much darker traces.

For those of you living in countries where poinsettia is more like a bush or a tree – in Sweden we buy them in December, in a pot, and every Swede get all Christmassy inside when these turn up in windows everywhere. People don´t usually keep them longer than a few weeks or until the red has disappeared – poinsettias do not fancy our climate, so the red leaves don´t come back.

17 x 18 cm, Koh-I-Noor Hardtmuth “GIOCONDA” Aquarelle pencils and watercolours on Fabriano Rosapina paper (sketchbook page).

I ran some errands in town this afternoon, and took a break in a café at Odengatan, where this girl was studying (”plugga” in Swedish) something very intensely.

I couldn´t help but trying to capture her on paper, it is so rare with people who sit still when you try to draw them!

Some news here on the blog: I have been trying to figure out how to get threaded comments to work, so I can answer the questions I get in the comment section in a neat way, and it seems I´ve solved it! So if you pose questions to me, please don´t forget to check back for an answer!

7 x 11 cm, Lamy Safari with Noodler´s Lexington grey ink and watercolours on Fabriano Rosapina paper (part of a sketchbook page).

A text message and a massive explosion of fireworks outside our kitchen window woke me up at 06.00 this morning. The police was down at the old public bath here in Aspudden, and the action group trying to save the bath from destruction wanted everyone´s attention. A little crowd of people gathered outside the bath when the police ended the 59 days of occupation. They emptied the building, sealed all windows and doors with sheet metal, and put up a fence around it. And just to make sure no one would try to save the house again, they pointed a flood light at it, and placed two guards outside.

What a waste of people´s efforts in trying to make their community a better place, and what a waste of historical value – the bath has been around since 1919! The responsible politician has never set her foot in this place, even though this matter has been discussed for almost two years now. I suppose travelling six kilometers from City hall is too much to ask to have a meaningful dialogue with the people you represent.

This has been in the national television news today, and in the morning papers. If nothing else, I hope this opens the eyes (ears!) of politicians who forgot to listen to ordinary people.

I wrote and drew about this before, here and here (and the same drawings were also posted at Urban Sketchers).

Oh, and if you want to see some actual photos of this place, check out excellent news photographer Lars Epstein´s blog posts about this subject, he has covered it over a period of time:
Nov 25 (evening)
Nov 25 (day)
Nov 21 (Aspudden public bath festival)
Nov 13 (oppositional politicians show their support)
Nov 8 (art barricade)
Sept 29 (the bath is occupied)
Sept 4 (about decision to tear down the bath)

Top drawing: 16 x 17 cm, Uniball eye pen and watercolours on Fabriano Rosapina paper
Black and white drawing: 14 x 9 cm, Uniball eye pen and Copic marker on same paper.

I finally filled the last spread in my old sketchbook. The one with the crappy paper. The one I never really liked (sorry, little book). I´m glad I worked my way throught it, though. A finished sketchbook always gives you a certain feeling of accomplishment.

So, on to new adventures with a new book that has been waiting for me for a while! It is (was) an old book about russian souvenirs, written in French, that I slaughtered and filled with new pristine pages of Fabriano Artistico hot press paper. I´m looking forward to both the size of the book (it´s slightly bigger than the last one), and working on better quality paper.

I´m thinking about using a smaller book too, on the side, since Souvenirs Russes might be a bit on the heavy side in some situations. I just have to decide on which of the smaller books I should go for… Hard decision. But a rather pleasant problem.

26,5 x 17 cm, Lamy Safaris with Noodler´s Lexington Grey and Polar Black ink and watercolours on sketchbook spread.