So at last I finished my little triangular oil...
The island in the background is known as the Blue Maiden (Blå Jungfrun) and was sketched on a cold winter's day with a few frozen pencil strokes, enough for memory. (You see it well from quaint little Oskarshamn.) And the hare in the foreground was another frozen little sketch.
Hoppity-hop...
For the little book of mine, an echo of a former project:
You can see how the words (sorry for the blur, the actual words are in Swedish and moreover reserved for the buyers-to-be of this book) are folding around this side-adventure with The Great Marriage Lottery Machine, a bitter parody of forced marriage is still going on around the world. In such cases the Swedes (who carry such an abundance ethics aboard that they happily export it) feel great moral indignation -- provided there's some good safety distance. So I put a temple in the midst of Stockholm, devoted to the Great God of Electricity -- and right now (in my story) they're having their Annual Wedding Lottery, assisted by a huge complex tombola with a wheel of fortune and all sorts of fancy, fizzing arbitrariness (I can't pronounce that).
I suppose that the Swedes would graciously accept this process as a part of Electric Religion and call for humble understanding (if it happened so close) and respect for Ethics of Another Voltage, etc. I myself had a little brush with forced marriage some two decades ago. And I wrote a little something that was duly ignored (but those frightened publishers were interesting to see) and after turning to other media and receiving the wrong sort of attention I put the whole thing down. (My relationship spent quite some years going downhill and one happy but belated day I put that one down too.)
Oh, let's get technical instead. The fittings were bred from one single design that I made variations upon...
...and then turned into copper (contrasting nicely with the PVC'ish tubes). Then I had the lottery balls flowing merrily through it all.
Last but not least, the Joyous Wheel of Fortune! I'm afraid that the design won't be seen as clearly on the paper prints (if I ever get done someday) but here you see it now; fine little boys and girls awaiting their very decided destiny when 14 or 16 or so.
Memories of the painful kind have a tendency to, if untreated, seep out of the brains and slowly poison the body. The aforesaid awful practice will remain in my consciousness but with this I want some of it washed out of my very fibres. Cheers.
For the Perpetual Book Project; and as the title says.
Once upon a time I worked for a sort of community centre; they had culture there. And I did their posters, there were concerts (some of which were mine) they hosted lectures and whatnot. And anyhow this plethora of things to do meant that my phone could go off anytime, just anytime. So I had this recurring little nightmare, where the phone rang and sometimes quite impossible things were demanded -- like, for instance, helping to build nuclear reactors on Saturn. I remember that one, as I was saved by the bell -- or phone -- ringing and demanding other things, less surreal but likewise impossible. So I sort of had to include it. And there we go.
Things that I like about it -- it looks like a nuclear Castle now. It is just as ta-daa as the demands of certain people. Ironically, I overslept. And now I publish this a little late -- I fear that the text, overseen by my weary eyes, is more surreal than the image... so what: Publish and be damned.
The Artist/Designer/etc. had quite fun a few nights before New Year's Eve. I had candy, Polkagris (hard Swedish stick candy) and a Certain Someone who couldn't be expected to swear off smoking on the Eve, nohow. So let's at least have some fun. Here's the candy.
And underneath is the paper...
...which I used to...
...turn the candy into cigars!
The box had to be camouflaged too, there was some printing on the top that was quite a giveaway. So I made a sort of girdle on fine paper.
This candy box now contained -- Sweetheart doesn't know much Spanish --
"Six Special Cigars, 100% Licorice, Product of Neverland Ranch, Bolivia" and so on in my pidgin Español. Mohahaha.
The most difficult thing was to imitate one of the bleak, harmless but commercial styles that many illustrators use for things like this (I call this variety Common Faux Vector Engraving) together with the fonts that one might see on such a package (the cigar wrappings then had to be made in style). So partly, this little prank was to some little extent made for my little, somewhat ironic-bitter amusement.
The surprise and the tasty Neverland Tobacco was very well received, however. Sweetheart loves licorice.
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Edit: Corrected a few grammar errors, January 8:th. Perfectionism, oh perfectionism... Still there must others, undetected, lurching about down there... and others to come... *Growl.*
