Purple Squirrels, Ellyphunts and Other Strange Things

Firstly, the Ellyphunt, made outdoors before this month got too scorching. An Ellyphunt, dearies, is what an Elephant would look like if one of the less insightful and therefore more entusiastic souls that I might encounter would describe it to me. And then I would not be paid, qua the result being Ellyphunt instead of Elephant.
As a rule of thumb, thus:
The more you do what such souls think that they want, the less they want it. O santa simplicitas.

During this month I also met with a lot of pink squirrels.
They might belong to the same bestiary. A "Pink Squirrel" --- I was very happy to chance upon this term --- is the job applicant that actually can do the six or sixty impossible things before breakfast that such wishlists often demand. It goes without saying they're part of the great Potemkin village of "meritocracy" that we have today.

Sorry: I'm not in any mood, obviously. I blame the heat. And some sales fatigue as a cherry on the top of that, trying to do business in the great Swedish Sloth Month of June (and July will be worse). But well, please have my business card. I'm here if you want me:

Here We Come Going Nuts in May

In order to handle this month, I let spin-offs turn into works in their own right, sailing away with brushes and all…

…or turn into other fruitful stuff when the original ventures grew too heavy. Or “berryful”? I have to check out whether cherries count as berries or fruit.

It’s no wonder that May is a wearisome month. For a start, it's dumb enough to begin with May 1^st, the hypocritical hours that call themselves Worker’s Day.
Thus I had to draw this Chess Party.

The feeling of futility also spilled over to this little landscape, with my last little question towering in it. I used a local field, damp and misty; the warped colours might hint a cold and frosty morning.

And so a word from our sponsors... I don’t know where you are, but the place where you should be is saatchionline.com where I’m trying to sell this --- here’s

Cruel Music Box Mechanics.

Go get. We’ll see where I am, if I am, in June.
“Cut!”

Art Made to Last, Burn or Crack

May I Come In?

I have already decided for an explanation, why do I draw and next paint on such an ephemeral material? I used to do fine oils (Winsor and Newton's best, Madame!) on carefully selected canvases, much the way that Rembrandt, van Dyck and Artemisia Gentileschi did. I will explain to the dofus that they made paintings meant to last as long as civilisation, in their case a few hundred years ahead. And so do I! I waste fine ink and watercolours and some faux gold even (a few modest strokes for fun, I don't think you see it here) on a recycled piece of cardboard that'll last for many, many months --- as long as our civilisation will.
The latter won't be recycled, obviously.

As a proof of this I point to the

Local Air Biz Dragon.

Speaking of things unsustainable. I had a grass fire near me this month, and the yellow airplane in the background that lifted to pour water on it (I saw it myself) came from the same airport as some of the planes that cause it... So my dragon now bears the colours of our local airline. It transports people who in nine cases out of ten couldv'e taken the train instead.
To make all of this extra funny: Our local flight is sponsored by our taxes. It can't fly by itself any better than a kiwi bird -- or fruit -- can. So this grass fire belongs to the citizens. We own every flame of it, obviously.

Lastly, this is

A Very Well Planned Egg.

I used it for a small rant that I wrote in Swedish, published obscurely. People do not speak or listen to eggs anyhow, no matter what language they use. So now it may squeak for itself until it cracks:
"I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness."

War News Overload and Other Dispatches

War News Overload

"All wars are exciting during the first two weeks".
(Unknown.)

As I write this the war in Ukraine has carried on for a round month, and both sides are showing signs of fatigue, and so are the spectators. The length of a war is generally measured from the first shot fired 'til Armistice (or, failing that, cease-fire of varying degrees of stability) but I wish that there was a name for the Fatigue Point, when wise warriors for the umpteenth time in history come to the insight that wars (with a few smashing exceptions) can't be won really.

Battery Newt

But we're fighting a different war with such success: The war on nature. This one I made as a comment on Volvo Cars, which plans to build a fine Electric Car Battery Factory, which sounds grand until ou learn about the -- already inhabited -- wetlands where they plan to build it. You can't make up a better illustration of greenwashing or "Green Growth", no matter how you try. You can't make this up at all.

This is merely

Dr. Giraffe.

This is the kind of image that one produces when one has spent March trying to show important stuff to people. Dr. Giraffe thinks that Humanity needs stronger meds.

A Bastard with Traditions

I recently saw Sergei Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible, a movie that Stalin very much liked, and there are some extremely jingoistic passages in it that the present Bastard in Charge just must have been inspired by. With Ivan Groznyj started the Russian expansion that has never really ceased -- nor the terror against its own people. With Putin's recent war against Ukraine in mind, this merry trio was sketched.

One sad thing about this war -- among so many others -- is how it shadows other concerns. We still have global warming going on. Title: "We're melting!"

And in Sweden we still have a state owned logging company that wreaks havoc inside our last natural forests: This little piece I call Sawrosaurus [Sågosaurus Borealis].

-- The whole work: I usually don't think horisontally so once upon a time I made this blog better fit for vertical imagery and it's a little bit late to change that now. So it goes. On the left you find money growing on trees, a lifeless monoculture of the kind that the saw monster likes. To the right there's a wasteland inspired by Paul Nash's WWI panorama "We Are Making A New World".

Ballpointy Remarks

“This is the winter of our discontent…”

I see that I last January (2021) sketched a quite harsh overview of Sweden and its repressive ways – I still stand by it. Historical reasons and guesstimates aside, this Pandemic Anti-Culture Special has been fattened with new restrictions aimed, above all, against culture.

Go to shopping malls, not theatres.
Work, don't hang around in bars.
(Joy can't be taxed.)

So this recent happy little piece (ballpoint pen/Photoshop) originated from that. I saw a lot of that no go tape (whatever it’s called in Real English) the other day.

Another recent piece in the same vein -- I found a good piece of cardboard. More ballpoint, watercolour, no electricity.

Very little electricity in this one too (but I got my ratty cell phone to tint it nicely) – a Two-Faced Whale. Nice face up, of course, the way you’re taught and pruned to do.

If I had told my “deadsoul” that posh me would one day sulk and draw with ballpoint pens, feeling no will to do sticky oils (as it seems now) ever again, former soul would not have believed it. But it owns the directness and freshness (dare I say virginity? In a good non-incel way) of a sketch. I like the baseness, the cheapness that chimes so well with base and cheap times. What next? Petty acrylics? The medium that's yucky, sticky and dries in a few improductive zeptoseconds. -- You may look up zeptoseconds while I am closing the store. Wake me up in February – if, I say, if it’s any better.

Fishy Solace and other Good Company.

December harvest: This one I call Suitable Activities for Fish.

It is "based on a true story", as they say; the sign is very real. Somewhere at a hotel or two in this world, scaled company is offered instead of the one denied by featherless bipeds.

You may discuss the Platonian definition of Man, Universal Loneliness or different ways to prepare Sushi. It will, as the sign says, only cost you three and a half € a night and will assuredly be considered vastly more moral and above all cheaper than other hired company.
Despite all this I'm not sure that the fish gets paid, though.

Here's some other good company. The people on Insta says that it must be some kind of Iris or See-weed.

It might not be attached to any Union, either. But I'm sure that it votes green.

Frost, Chilly Geometry and Other Eerie Stuff

Half an hour ambling around in the chill totally without a clue. Shooting this and that. This, and 2½ hours worth of Photoshop... et voilà. I have not been too careful, but let the crude lines be. I saw no point in refining them, but preferred to carve away into them as I went on, filling in collage, layering "paint" and distorting in general. It is now available on Saatchi&Saatchi (link).

In an entirely different vein, here's Home for the Geometrically Depressed (also available on Saatchi & Saatchi under that name, you can't miss it).

Last but not least -- obviously i still work with analogue stuff. This is PTSD or You Never Remember Their Faces -- because you never do. Mostly ink and watercolours.

That'll do for November.

Abysmal Puddle, A Premonition.

October ended on such a sour note that I never got around to posting anything. This one I called Abysmal Puddle: I was feeling low already.

Then things got worse. A lost cellphone and general mischief.

I'm just waiting for the next blow.

Watery Things & Salty Seas

This September I've been a little low at times. As long as it creates art, vale.

"Vale", if I remember my fragments of Latin right, means sort of Well, let it be: Sort of, let go of trying to explain. Or how would you explain this?

The month hasn't been entirely joyless though. There's a Leiann in California who adorns my works with colours, such as this little piece called "Paperwork", for short.
I feel blessed. :)

Peacocks and Tormented Souls; the Mood Swings of August

This peacock was the least nasty part of a dream; it told me, Be Brave! -- and I guess that I needed that.

This thing I posted on Insta, with the sweet little caption:

"This has been a beautiful week full of meaningful, hope-inspiring Correspondence, and we approach the weekend feeling very bouncy and healthy."

And here you see how the business part of artistry or other pursuits might enrichen your soul. I had particularily fun designing the pink goo.

Something that might enrichen your soul, however, is writing by hand. It got me going today. Here's the draft for the beginning of this rant:

It saddens me that one does this so little these days.

Summing up July

How time flies. July has been a weird month. And I -- I don't know how -- actually got some Art done. There's for instance this odd thing:

And the apples are growing in the garden..

...and other stuff grows in my mind

That'll do for now.

A Hearty Glass of Wine & Uncomfortable Furniture

Two things from June 2021.
Here's a glass of wine: I serve it largely without comment, a crude ballpoint pen sketch.
But you may have some music with it.

This one is named Floral Vase to Make your Guests feel Uncomfortable. I threw it together digitally, and I guess that the title says it all.

An uncomfy (?) detail.

That's all for June.

Sushi of Desire (Printing Rights Available)

Too late for a trigger warning now...

If you still haven't winced or flinced but, poor soul, actually happen to like dark musings like this and would like printing rights, don't hesitate to send a mail to oj.ceder@gmail.com. The original is in quite high resolution and would still be sharp when up to two feet wide. Here's a close-up of the Salmon Sushi.

Head of the Sushi Roll Fish (so now you know how it's made)!

And, finally, the gory details in the middle. Ink, digital and collage (from my own twisted photos) -- come and get it while the blood is hot.

Creepy-Crawley

This little thing, now for sale, might crawl on your walls to scare other monsters away. It specialises in Thought Goblins, which is the worst kind there is, and eats them whole. Displate.com (<-- Yes, click on that!) has a nice set, you might even get a quadriptych to eat really big goblins with.

And here's...

The central piece, during construction. A badge of sorts.