Nina Johansson

Another piece of essential equipment.

17,5 x 12.8 cm, Snowman ink pen and watercolours on Plano drawing paper.

More bicycle gear. These are indespensable right now. It´s dark when I go to work, and it´s dark when I start my ride home again.

17,5 x 12.8 cm, Snowman ink pen and watercolours on Plano drawing paper.

Time to change the tyres on the bicycle. The winter is unusually late in Stockholm this year – still no snow – but they say it´s coming this week.

17,5 x 12.8 cm, Snowman ink pen and watercolours on Plano drawing paper.

Refridgerator typography.

17,5 x 12.8 cm, Snowman ink pen, Micron ink pens and ZIG Millennium ink pens on Plano drawing paper.

I think guitars (and other string instruments – cellos, violins, ukuleles…) are difficult to draw. They are kind of awkward to fit onto a page, bulky at one end and very narrow at the other, and everytime I try to draw one, I end up with more of a symbol of a guitar instead of an actual individual guitar. I draw the kind of image any human being would recognize as a guitar, but hardly That Particular Guitar, if you know what I mean.

So, to try to do something different with this instrument, I have been looking at my guitar from all kinds of angles, turning it this way and the other, trying to find a view that would be less typical. I ended up with this very shortened view that I find kind of interesting.

This was a really fun drawing to make. I draw a lot, and I think I have a pretty decent perception of proportions, and I usually don´t check relationships in my drawings very much, other than with my eyesight. But this time I had to use the pen for measuring here and there. I couldn´t believe my eyes when the head stock looked higher than the whole body of the instrument, but there it is – it IS higher, from this angle. Challenging for a brain stuck in symbol mode. : )

17,5 x 12.8 cm, Snowman ink pen and watercolours on Plano drawing paper.

Oh boredom. This is truly an everyday thing, but it is IMPOSSIBLE to make a drawing of a computer look interesting…

17,5 x 12.8 cm, Snowman ink pen, Gelly gel pen and watercolours on Plano drawing paper.

Just a quiet evening.

17,5 x 12.8 cm, Snowman ink pen and watercolours on Plano drawing paper.

Day six. Probably the most uninspired drawing in this series so far – lack of time and darkness are not helping. But a challenge is a challenge, ain´t gonna quit now.

17,5 x 12.8 cm, Snowman ink pen and watercolours on Plano drawing paper.

The angles on this thing… but the coffee is great, and  trying to balance it on the smallest burner on our gas stove every morning is a true adventure.

17,5 x 12.8 cm, Snowman ink pen and watercolours on Plano drawing paper.

Day four. This works for us.

17,5 x 12.8 cm, Snowman ink pen and watercolours on Plano drawing paper.