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