Fourth year with Nordens Ark.

Summer, sun and vacation! This year we spent the holidays at home with a lot of daytrips. Of which, of course, to our dear Nordens Ark! Now it's become a tradition to visit the park together with the whole family every summer. I'm so happy to be working with them! Now it's the fourth year in a row that I illustrate animal motifs for Nordens Ark. This year we focused the spotlight on the europeian ground squirrel, northern bald ibis, vänecow and the amur tiger.

As usual, the animal motifs are printed on cups, posters, postcards, etc. and are only sold in their own charming little shop in the park. All earnings go directly to their hard work to save endangered animals.

Here are some pictures from our visit this summer. It really warms my heart to have my very own little courner at Nordens Ark!<3

Happy Sanna!

How cool?

"Mini-me".

This day it was also "the national tiger's day" and we finally got to say hello to the Amur tigers that I have portrayed earlier this year.

A sign in the park that I've been illustrating as well.

This year's new motifs on mugs!

Another fun thing that I haven't shown here is that I have also illustrated pictures for a craft book for Nordens Ark (Available for purchase in their store). The magazine turned out so nice! Both fun and educational for adults and children! Here are some pictures of it.

Soon it will be time for another meeting to plan next year's motifs. In between, I will, among other things, work a bit at Colorama here in Skövde, restore a beautiful, old stairwell at the Freemasons and marble a guitar. Feel free to follow me on Instagram to see more!

Talk to you soon! :)

Examination time!

It feels like I just started at Tibro hantverksakademi but apparently it was two years ago BECAUSE I JUST GRATUATED! How crazy is that? And! I haven't been writing here since december... Sorry about that. But it's been a bit bananas lately. So now we have some cathing up to do!

During the spring, we had our third and last internship period and then the courses entrepreneurship, specialization and at last, the exam project. During our internship I spent two months with the Freemasons in Skövde. They are moving and in their new premises there is an incredibly beautiful staircase where the walls and ceilings are completely covered with painted marble and different types of decorative painting. These have unfortunately been damaged over the years. And my job was to fix and restore all the damaged parts. I have also made a lot of other things for them (like three big paintings) but it's unfortunately a bit secret and not something I can show here but it was ok to show some pictures of the restorations I've made in their "new" stairwell.

This is what the stairwell looks like.

The celing. How beautiful?

Restoration - Before

Restoration - After

Restoration - Before

Restoration - After

Restoration - Before

Restoration - After

There were some examples but I will not show them all as it's probably just nerds like me who will find it interesting ;) But it's been very fun and educational! There's still a lot that needs to be done so I hope I get to come back with the palette (though next time in the form of my own company SWART). Incredibly beautiful and wonderful environment to work in.

Since then, we've spent the rest of the spring delving into both entrepreneurship, specialization / decorative painting and at last the exam project. Fun! During the specialization, there was a lot of repetition of marbling and wood grain, but also a lot of focus on grisaille. That is, a shadow technique where you paint in grayscale to get a 3D effect. I now discovered that I have been a little bad at taking pictures of this, but here is one example I've made.

Since then, we have also worked on our exam projects! Where we could decide a little more freely what we wanted to make but with the requirement that we would use some of the techniques that we've learned during these two past years.

...And there I have a little crazy idea. You who have followed me on instagram may have seen that I have been making a lot of different stuff with a banana-theme, lately. I have a vision of, maybe within a year or two have worked together for my very own exhibition. Where I will use both old traditional techniques but also a little more modern and exhibit everything from own oil paintings to sculptures, fabric, wallpaper and posters. The exhibition will be called "Sanna Wieslander goes bananas" and where all the different art works will go under the same theme... BANANAS!

Therefore I took the opportunity to start working on this collection a bit during my exam project. And since a large part of our education has been about teaching us how to marble, I have chosen to make a banana-marble painting with shadow technique together with matching marble bananas, cast in plaster.

This is what my first sketch looked like.

And here are some pictures from the making process.

Sketching on a "let's go bananas" - meander border.

Feel free to check out my stories on Instagram where there are more videos from the actual creation process. And all of a sudden, TWO YEARS have passed and I have just graduated. How fast did that go? It really has been an absolutely amazing time! But now I'm so incredibly excited to finally get started and work full time with my little company SWART again! Still as an illustrator but now also as a decorative painter and gilder. <3

Golden sound waves at Kulturhuset.

Now I'm back from my second internship! This time I've worked with decorative painting at Kulturhuset in Skövde. And it has been so much fun!

Earlier this autumn, I contacted Skövde's cultural producer Jonna Ahlander and asked if they needed a practicing decor painter anywhere. It all ended up with me during my internship having free hands to do what ever I wanted on the walls in the room Kulturiet at Kulturhuset. It used to be Robert Gustafson's old "stage room" ( a Swedish, famous comedian) where he began his journey and to which he had his own key to go and rehearse performances when he was little. The room has looked the same for many years and it was now quite worn and previously painted in a little crazy colors like bright orange and green and they now wanted this room to get a new look. Do you understand what a dream project to go bananas in an entire room in that way? I've been in heaven!

This room is intended for smaller gigs or other types of events. It has a small kitchen / bar, a few pillars in the middle of the room and a small stage at the other end. And beautiful, large, black doors with brass details! When I was brainstorming ideas, I immediately thought of sound waves for some reason. I wanted to make a pattern like sound waves to follow every wall around the room. To symbolize the music that would be played there and meetings between people. I thought that the doors with brass details in the room were so beautiful so I wanted to highlight these by making the pattern in gold / brass. Then I wanted to paint smoke. A mysterious smoke... Just like it can be at gigs. So I tried to put these two elements together in some way. And here are some pictures from the process.

This is what it looked like before:

Through that door you enter.

Jonna shows me around. This is what the view looked like from the entrance.

The kitchen / bar counter.

Robert, a bit of renovation chaos and the scene behind it. Then it was time for me to start working! :)

The whole room was repainted with a light gray color. Then I started by painting the "smoke" that should follow the golden pattern around the room.

When I was going to draw the pattern. I photographed the wall with the painted smoke and then drew on that photo with my drawing tablet. I think it makes it a lot easier when you paint this big. To see that the lines flow and give a good balance before you really get started.

I cut together a small film about how I made one of the walls. First the cloud of smoke and then when I drew the golden pattern with posca pencils.

The pattern begins to take shape.

Then I took a break from the mural and focused on the kitchen for a while. There was old, black decorative plastic that was a little crooked and there were half / broken tiles in places. So I removed all the old decorative plastic and replaced these with brass as well. Then I glued a small mdf board and filled all the big holes that I then painted so they look like real tiles.

Behind the decorative plastic were light blue squares.

Tada!

Then I continued with the pattern at the entrance. I made this a little bigger and more detailed, as if the sound waves cross here and continue out at each end of the room.

Nu är alla väggar färdiga!

The Robert Gustafson sign on the counter will be removed later.

Since I study how to gild and marble, I thought I might take the opportunity to do that with the pillars so the room feels a little more luxurious.

Black marble in the making.

Making a looot of tiny white lines...

Gilded the bottom of the pillars with brass leaves which I then patinated.

Very ergonomic working position! I forgot to take pictures on the pillars when everything was ready but I will go back and make the final touches during the Christmas holidays. So you will get an update!

That's about as far as I've got in these weeks. But I'll be back during the Christmas holidays and fix the last things and put on a top coat on the pillars. They are painted with oil paint so it takes a while before it dries.

And! the best of all!! At the beginning of next year, when they have also finished renovating the outer wall of the room, they will throw a party at the new Kulturiet with some music and other goodies! Then I will be on site and talk a about who I am, how the thoughts went around the motif for the mural and the process behind it. You are all warmly welcome! More info about this this coming soon.

Thank you very much dear Jonna and everyone else at Kulthurhuset who I've gotten to know during these weeks. For the trust in this project and for that you have all taken such good care of me. It has been absolutely fantastic! <3