If the children will jump in their mental time machines and go back to the fall of 2010 they should recall the deafening crush of whispers and reports about global superstar Lady Gaga's (alleged) hunt for a hideaway house on the almost preposterously preppy Martha's Vineyard. It was snitched at the time that Miss Gaga loved the Vineyard and thought it would be a perfect place to vanish and rejuvenate after her Monster Ball tour wraps up in 2011.
It wasn't so long ago that Miss Gaga shacked up in a dingy tenement building on the Lower East Side, just a few blocks from where Your Mama lived for about a hundred years. Miss Gaga–nee the far more prosaic Stefani Germanotta–has earned a vast and growing fortune in a very short time and can now well afford to live how and where she wants but ever since becoming wildly and filthy rich always bizzy beaver has had a somewhat bumpy real estate ride.
Last year Your Mama heard from an unimpeachable source that Miss Gaga considered the purchase of a $16,500,000 house in Beverly Hills, CA that we also heard that Nicole Kidman–who already owns a house in the 'hood–made an offer on. However and instead, the sartorial daredevil leased a mansion in the Bel Air area of Los Angeles for $25,000 per month owned by the same folks at the $16,500,000 house she thought about buying. Her manager–or agent or somebody who makes a lot of money from Gaga's gyrations–gave her a vintage convertible Rolls Royce to drive. Alas, Miss Gaga quickly decided she didn't like life in L.A. and high-tailed it back to her native New York City where she led celebrity property gossips on a wild goose chase as she toured just about every apartment and penthouse in downtown Manhattan with a monthly rent above $20,000.
Last summer there was a lot of confusion and scads of reports that Miss Gaga might be interested in purchasing a multi-million dollar mansion in the Hamptons. Some reports speculated that she'd opted to and already had leased a house for the summer. Your Mama, iffin we're being honest, has no idea if Miss Gaga spent time in the Hamptons last summer or not.
The latest gossip on the topic to come straight out of Martha's Vineyard suggests that Miss Gaga is not buying on Martha's Vineyard proper but building a Haus of Gaga on Chappaquiddick, a separate island at the eastern end of the Vineyard island that feels doubly remote since it is accessible only by ferry from Edgartown. Chappaquiddick, Chappy in local parlance, is perhaps and for better or worse most famous for being the locale where in 1969 Senator Ted Kennedy's car went off Dyke's Bridge into Poucha Pond and killed his lady friend Mary Jo Kopechne.
Anyhoo, according to the latest whispers around Chappy and Edgartown, Miss Gaga is engaged in building a "coo-coo and contemporary" style crib right up next door to the rather attractive island getaway of trout-pouted actress Meg Ryan who had her house featured last year on the glossy pages of Elle Decor.
It's hard to imagine that Miss Gaga and Miz Ryan will become the sort of neighbors who share gardening tips or get drunk together on Thursday afternoons like Your Mama used to do with our sassy and much-missed neighbor Rosemary when we summered on the east end of Long Island. But then again, maybe they'll become fast friends as they lallygag the summer away braiding each other's hair on their rather remote spit of land on Chappaquiddick.
Now kids, keep in mind that this is all just rumor and gossip that floats around on the ferries and gets passed along on the deep shaded porches all around the island. We scooched around in the property records for a few minutes but came up empty handed and there seems to be no available confirmation from her people that Miss Gaga is or is not buying or building a house on Martha's Vineyard. We'll just have to buckle in and wait to see.
Miz Ryan, the current paramour of John Cougar Mellencamp, also owns a spectacular house in the Bel Air area of Los Angeles that sits next door to smoldering fashion designer/filmmaker Tom Ford and is currently leased out to Oscar winner Diane Keaton who recently sold her Beverly Hills house to Nip/Tuck and Glee creator Ryan Murphy who is, we hear through the celebrity real estate grapevine, interested in buying the home of yet another Oscar-winning lady. It is, children, a tangled web these celebrities weave with their myriad and near-constant real estate machinations.
A short list of other notable homeowners on the dee-voon Martha's Vineyard include tech tycoon turned art collector Peter Norton, Naomi Foner and Stephen Gyllenhaal–although with their dee-vorce and alleged money troubles we're not sure of the status of that house, chat show host and Donald Trump mocker David Letterman, Emmy-winning lefty-lib writer/producer Larry David and the most marvelous earth-momma Carly Simon and her big ol' teeth.
Now then, what does a meat dress donning gal like Gaga wear the beach? A bikini of glass shards and butterfly wings? A one piece number made of tin foil with a dangling train of sea shells and bottle caps? A bedazzled burqa? Anyone?
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Birthday Break
Listen puppies, today is Your Mama's birthday–yes, it really is–so we've decided to give our self a wee break. Instead of working our fingers to the bone like we do most days we're going to spend the day on our back deck, sipping gin and eating the dee-voon white-trash birthday cake the Dr. Cooter made for us.
However, we hate to leave the children high, dry and starving for a celebrity real estate morsel so here are a few nuts and berries to keep y'all busy for a while.
1.
Alternative music maker Moby recently moved from New York City to Los Angeles where he's made house in the legendary Wolf's Lair, a storied castle perched high above Lake Hollywood. Moby bought the fairy tale property last year from divorcing music executive Jay Faires and tee-vee talker Debbie Matenopoulos.
The quirky house had first been listed with an asking price of $7,500,000. Property records show that Mister Moby paid $3,925,000 for the 3.31 acre aerie and according to a recent article in the New York Times, the picayune, pixie-like musician spent another couple million on renovations and restorations that included the installation of a new kitchen, the addition of three bathrooms to the main house, the conversion of a garage into a recording studio and situating a small meditation deck to hover serenely over the lake.
Photos in the New York Times reveal that Mister Moby has sparely but smartly furnished the house with pedigreed mid-century modern furniture that, as far as we're concerned, makes a delicious juxtaposition against the eccentric architecture and historical architectural details.
2.
We're not sure how many people actually care about this but for those who do Madonna's fire-ravaged childhood home in Rochester Hills, MI can now be purchased for just $49,000. Your Mama presumes there are a healthy handful of crazed "fans" who are, at this very minute, pawning their car stereos and selling their 14-karate gold jewelry to come up with the damn down payment. Iffin we were Madonna–and thank heavens we are not–we'd buy the property, raze the house and donate the land for a neighborhood park with taxes paid for the next 99 years. Just a thought.
3.
Your Mama gets a lot of questions about pocket listings: What are they? Why would someone do a pocket listing? Click here for the low-down on pocket listings. Let us know if you have any questions.
4.
It's no secret that celebrities have special real estate desires and needs and the money to buy them. Here's a list compiled by people at Zillow of the top 10 features famous folks look for in a home.
5.
Hip hopper Salt of Salt-N-Pepa listed her Melville, NY mansion with an asking price of $2,295,000. Who?
6.
An unidentified buyer paid a stunning $47,000,000 for a New York City townhouse originally built for one of those lavish living Vanderbilts. The 33-foot wide townhouse was sold as a pocket listing (see above) sans broker, which means no commission will be paid.
7.
Your Mama asks that the children consider the audacious brilliance of the tiger-striped wall-to-wall carpeting in this New York City penthouse at the Trump International Hotel and Tower. Our friends at Curbed think the high-floor corner condo, recently listed at $24,000,000, might belong to Band-Aid heiress Libbet Johnson whose brother Woody–that would be the owner of the New York Jets and father of tragic socialite Casey Johnson–happens to own the penthouse next door.
However, we hate to leave the children high, dry and starving for a celebrity real estate morsel so here are a few nuts and berries to keep y'all busy for a while.
1.
Alternative music maker Moby recently moved from New York City to Los Angeles where he's made house in the legendary Wolf's Lair, a storied castle perched high above Lake Hollywood. Moby bought the fairy tale property last year from divorcing music executive Jay Faires and tee-vee talker Debbie Matenopoulos.
The quirky house had first been listed with an asking price of $7,500,000. Property records show that Mister Moby paid $3,925,000 for the 3.31 acre aerie and according to a recent article in the New York Times, the picayune, pixie-like musician spent another couple million on renovations and restorations that included the installation of a new kitchen, the addition of three bathrooms to the main house, the conversion of a garage into a recording studio and situating a small meditation deck to hover serenely over the lake.
Photos in the New York Times reveal that Mister Moby has sparely but smartly furnished the house with pedigreed mid-century modern furniture that, as far as we're concerned, makes a delicious juxtaposition against the eccentric architecture and historical architectural details.
2.
We're not sure how many people actually care about this but for those who do Madonna's fire-ravaged childhood home in Rochester Hills, MI can now be purchased for just $49,000. Your Mama presumes there are a healthy handful of crazed "fans" who are, at this very minute, pawning their car stereos and selling their 14-karate gold jewelry to come up with the damn down payment. Iffin we were Madonna–and thank heavens we are not–we'd buy the property, raze the house and donate the land for a neighborhood park with taxes paid for the next 99 years. Just a thought.
3.
Your Mama gets a lot of questions about pocket listings: What are they? Why would someone do a pocket listing? Click here for the low-down on pocket listings. Let us know if you have any questions.
4.
It's no secret that celebrities have special real estate desires and needs and the money to buy them. Here's a list compiled by people at Zillow of the top 10 features famous folks look for in a home.
5.
Hip hopper Salt of Salt-N-Pepa listed her Melville, NY mansion with an asking price of $2,295,000. Who?
6.
An unidentified buyer paid a stunning $47,000,000 for a New York City townhouse originally built for one of those lavish living Vanderbilts. The 33-foot wide townhouse was sold as a pocket listing (see above) sans broker, which means no commission will be paid.
7.
Your Mama asks that the children consider the audacious brilliance of the tiger-striped wall-to-wall carpeting in this New York City penthouse at the Trump International Hotel and Tower. Our friends at Curbed think the high-floor corner condo, recently listed at $24,000,000, might belong to Band-Aid heiress Libbet Johnson whose brother Woody–that would be the owner of the New York Jets and father of tragic socialite Casey Johnson–happens to own the penthouse next door.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Painting while listening to classical music
By Marrit (gr. 6, right part) and Luuk (gr. 1, left part)
You need:
- cd's with classical music
- cd-players
- drawing sheet A2 size
- brushes
- tempera paint
- jar with water
Every first grader came to the sixth graders and asked a student to work with. Each pair was sent to a classroom where they listened to a piece of classical music. By talking together, 'What do you think of while hearing this?' 'What do you feel?' students had to make a painting. One student on the right side, the other on the left side of the sheet. It wasn't nesessary to make one painting, but they might do it. I was all about interpretation of the music.
Marrit (left, grade 6) and Luuk (grade 1) working together on their fishbowls
Students made great artworks together. Some worked together to make one painting, like the one above: two fishbowls, painted while listening to the Four Seasons - Spring of Vivaldi. It is clear the right bowl is painted by the grade 6 student. Other couples chose to paint tow different interpretations, as you can see below.
A great project, worth to give it a try!
Reality T.V. King Lists Hollywood Hills Hideout
SELLER: Mark CroninLOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,550,000
SIZE: 3,444 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: While flipping and flitting through some of the newer listings around Tinseltown our beady little eyes were caught by a vintage house in the hills above Hollywood that property records reveal belongs to television executive Mark Cronin and is listed at $1,550,000.
Your Mama knows that most of y'all don't recognize Mister Cronin's name but he's one of the people responsible for creating, producing and/or writing some of the tawdriest, trashiest and most proudly meretricious reality television programs that have ever graced–or bedeviled, depending on your point of view–the boob-toob. Listen, hunnies, we are no stranger to reality tee-vee but even Your Mama's jaded jaw hangs agape when we happen across one of Mister Cronin's paralyzing and sometimes traumatizing creations. We don't want to watch these shows but iffin we come across one of them we can't usually help but to sit stunned, equal parts mortified and mesmerized.
Mister Cronin spent much of the 1990s as a writer and producer for foul-mouth shock jock turned plutocrat Howard Stern. In the late 1990s Mister Cronin turned to television eventually churning out a long list of some of the lowliest of the low-brow reality tee-vee turkeys including The Surreal Life, Flavor of Love, Charm School, Rock of Love with Bret Michaels, America's Most Smartest Models and the truly, deeply upsetting Bridalplasty on which a dozen self-loathing women compete to win plastic surgery procedures and a fantasy wedding. Gawd. It's enough to make Your Mama need a nerve pill with our early afternoon pitcher of gin & tonics.
As far as Your Mama can tell, most of the programs created, produced and/or written by Mister Cronin involve isolating a lot of bottom rung famous and quasi-famous folks in a Pee-wee's Playhouse-style mansion in L.A. and/or putting a whole mess of shockingly inarticulate and wildly volatile strippers all together in a house with an endless supply of booze and seeing what happens. Usually these thong-straps-up-above-the-waist-of-their-skin-tight-low-rise-jeans-wearing beehawtchas drink, get loud, pull hair and generally act like a bunch of feral animals who would rather push a girl down the stairs than politely ask her to step aside.
Anyhoodles noodles, property records show that Mister Cronin acquired his 1926 Spanish casa perched below street level but still above the tree tops in the steep hills above bee-yoot-iful Beachwood Canyon in October of 2004 for $1,849,000. The property was first put on the market, according to Redfin, in mid-October 2010 with an asking price of $1,849,500. The asking price was later reduced to $1,675,000 before finally settling at it's current $1,550,000.
A few quick flicks of Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that even if Mister Cronin's Real Estate can pull a rabbit out of a hat with a full-price sale of $1,550,000, he'll still have to swallow the bitter financial pill of a $300,000 loss not counting real estate fees, carrying costs and any renovations he and the Missus may have had done.
Listing information describes the house as having 3,444 square feet with 5 bedrooms and 5.5 poopers on three elevator-less floors. Either Mister and Missus Cronin horrendous taste in bed linens and zee-ro use for books to fill the bookshelves that line one wall in the office/library or they've already stripped the house of personal belongings and done decamped to their bigger digs. More on that later.
A classic turreted entry leads to a step-down formal living room with original narrow-strip wood floors the run throughout the house, a fireplace, beamed and vaulted ceiling and windows on three sides some of which provide panoramic views of Los Angeles that rolls out like a glittering carpet below the house. The coral-walled dining room has an ugly and unnecessary pass through to the kitchen that Your Mama recommends the new owners seal up. The eat-in kitchen appears to have been fairly recently redone with granite counter top, Shaker-style birch cabinets, portable center work island and mid-grade stainless steel appliances. Although we can't be sure, the kitchen has a well-designed but generic Scandinavian thing about it that makes Your Mama suspect that this may be an Ikea kitchen.
The five bedrooms are split, according to listing information, between the three floors. There are two bedrooms on the upper level, a guest suite with separate entrance on the lowest level and in between the master suite with its severely dated and depressing bathroom. All you need to know about this bathroom, children, is that the fixtures are brass, the tile floor beige and the counter tops veined green marble, the sort more commonly found in in a library or banking institution. The master bedroom shares the middle level, according to listing information with a "media room" with a very ordinary-sized flat-screen television mounted to the wall and French doors that open to an elevated terrace with city views.
Sitting well below the house a city-view terrace that feels like a boo-teek resort in the trees has a lap-lane swimming pool, spa, patch of grass, tree shaded lounging area and what listing information calls an "entertainment ramada." Don't worry kids, Your Mama had to consult the dictionary to figure out what a ramada is too.
We are for sure and indeed rather fond of this ramada thing but we are also concerned about what happens when frolicking poolside and stricken with an uncontrollable need of a fresh gin & tonic, a candy bar or terlit. It is at least a long flight of stairs up to a pooper and three glutius busting flights up to the kitchen or wet bar in the library/office/family room. The children can be assured that our haughty house gurl Svetlana's solution to our need for poolside booze or a sugar fix would to stand at the window of the kitchen and toss bottles into the swimming pool. Her advice for anyone pool side in need of a pee? Cop a squat over in the bushes.
Over the last few months a considerable kerfuffle has erupted and tension created between neighborhood residents and the scads of tourists who drive their cars through the neighborhood to get to one of the best spots in all of Los Angeles to see and photograph the Hollywood sign, a beloved, powerful and internationally recognized symbol for Los Angeles and its movie-making history. It seems that some locals don't care for the newly installed directional signs that point tourists to the best vantage point for sign viewing. Many have mysteriously disappeared and the general consensus is that the culprit might be a neighborhood vigilante who ripped them down in the cloak of darkness in a grass-roots effort to thwart any out-of-towners who might want to use their narrow, quiet and dangerously curvy streets in order to get up close and personal with the sign.
Property records indicate the Mister and Missus Cronin packed up and moved to a stately mansion in swanky but very staid San Marino, CA, right next door to Pasadena. Listing information Your Mama teased up out of the interweb shows the couple's new 1924 "Italian Renaissance Revival" mansion sits on over one acre of manicured grounds and formal gardens. The 6,769 square foot villa has, according to listing information, six bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, a library with three walls of leaded glass windows, an eat-in kitchen and a master suite with two bathrooms and three tiled terraces.
listing photos: Deasy Penner & Partners
Artist's Journal Workshop--the advance copy is in hand!
Well, this is EXCITING! The mail just came, and in it were my two advance copies of the journal book! By the end of May it should be available in stores and for order on Amazon!
I was delighted to see it now has the "look inside" option, but holding it in my hands--all that work, all the gorgeous art that my fellow journal keepers and blog correspondents shared--is very, very good. North Light did a terrific job, and so did each of the artists involved. THANK YOU, ALL, you're the best.
You can pre-order it by clicking on the graphic above, or by going to my Amazon Store, Cathy Johnson's Books & More. (And yes, I do get a tiny commission on anything you get once you're in my store. Helps keep my furry family in cat food!)
Your Mama Hears...
...that east coast bound Tinseltowner Jennifer Aniston is not buying two apartments in a white-glove pre-war building in the West Village as has been reported here, there and everywhere, but three.
According to a source Your Mama freely admits we do not know, Miss Aniston plans to purchased not only Sally Hershberger's itsy-bitsy but exquisite jewel box penthouse listed at a mind-altering $5,900,000 and the one bedroom and one bathroom apartment directly below that's listed at $1,800,000 but also the unit next door.
The third unit, owned by a Canadian gal, measures 850 square feet according to listing information and like the other two units includes just 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom. Records reflect that the apartment was purchased just one year ago for $1,650,000 and the apartment first showed up on the listing services in early April with an asking price of $2,100,000, a number that has since been slivered to $1,995,000.
The asking prices for the three units combined comes to a staggering $9,695,000. It's unlikely Miss Aniston will be paying that amount for all three units that measure up to under 2,500 square feet of interior space and include a wrap around terrace with multi-million dollar views. Even if her Real Estates and Business Managers manage a 20% discount on each of the three units she's still looking at shelling out nearly eight million clams for three apartments that could quite easily cost Miss Aniston another couple million more to combine, renovate and decorate.
The children should note that the listing for this third unit that we heard through the celebrity real estate grapevine that Miss Aniston is purchasing is still marked "active" so this is all just rumor and gossip at this point, children, rumor and gossip.
According to a source Your Mama freely admits we do not know, Miss Aniston plans to purchased not only Sally Hershberger's itsy-bitsy but exquisite jewel box penthouse listed at a mind-altering $5,900,000 and the one bedroom and one bathroom apartment directly below that's listed at $1,800,000 but also the unit next door.
The third unit, owned by a Canadian gal, measures 850 square feet according to listing information and like the other two units includes just 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom. Records reflect that the apartment was purchased just one year ago for $1,650,000 and the apartment first showed up on the listing services in early April with an asking price of $2,100,000, a number that has since been slivered to $1,995,000.
The asking prices for the three units combined comes to a staggering $9,695,000. It's unlikely Miss Aniston will be paying that amount for all three units that measure up to under 2,500 square feet of interior space and include a wrap around terrace with multi-million dollar views. Even if her Real Estates and Business Managers manage a 20% discount on each of the three units she's still looking at shelling out nearly eight million clams for three apartments that could quite easily cost Miss Aniston another couple million more to combine, renovate and decorate.
The children should note that the listing for this third unit that we heard through the celebrity real estate grapevine that Miss Aniston is purchasing is still marked "active" so this is all just rumor and gossip at this point, children, rumor and gossip.
Meet Nina Johansson--Interview #10
Meet our friend, Swedish artist and journal keeper Nina Johannson! I was delighted when she agreed to be part of the book and subsequently, this blog. Nina's work always has a clean feeling and beautiful design, as you can see on her website/blog. (More in our initial post, HERE--as always you can click on the images to see them larger.)
She experiments with new techniques, colors and tools, and generously shares with all of us on her blog--it's one of my favorites.
Nina records her travels in her journals, as many of us do...her skill really shows, and invites us right along with her.
I asked Nina to tell us a bit about herself...and here's her introduction:
”Hometown” is a tricky word for me. I was born in Gävle in Sweden in 1970, then then family moved north to Umeå when I was nine. If someone asks, I call Umeå my hometown, though I still have a soft spot in my heart for Gävle. When I was twenty six, I thought I knew Umeå by heart, and couldn´t quite find my future there, so I moved to Stockholm – a dream I had had for years then. Now Stockholm has become my hometown too, so these days it seems I am ”going home” no matter which direction I´m travelling in Sweden.
I have always drawn, but my formal training in arts began in 1991, at a school north of Skellefteå. I went there for two years, at first mostly to try it out, since I didn´t quite feel at home in the natural science field where I had began my higher education. After that, there was no way back, I felt so at home. Almost all education I have gone through since then has had something to do with art or other creative stuff. I have gone through art classes, went through an education in digital image editing, pre-press and layout, and finally went through the Visual Arts teacher education program at University College of Arts, Crafts and Design (Konstfack) in Stockholm. Since then I have been working as a teacher of arts, design, computer graphics, film making and web design, and I keep drawing and painting as much as I can in my spare time.
--------------------
Thanks, Nina, good to "meet" you! And now let's jump right into the interview...
Q.
How long have you been journaling? Did you always do an art journal, and how has it evolved?
A.
No, I didn´t always journal. I would say I started journaling, or drawing in sketchbooks instead of on loose papers, some time in 2005. I have always been drawing, in pads, on loose papers, on big and small surfaces, even in sketchbooks, but I only drew a few pages and then went on to some other kind of paper. But in 2004-5 drawing became more and more important to me, and I had a feeling that I should start working more consciously, and collect my drawings in a better way, keep track of them, not spread them around so much. And as soon as I started drawing in a book, and jotting down the date every now and then, it became a journal, not 'just drawings'. It became in a way a chronological record of my days. Not every day, and not
everything I do, but still.
And as every other person I know who draws in a sketchbook, I remember everything around the drawings, like the place I did them in, the weather, the smell in the air on that day, what people were saying around me and so on. I also started drawing much more when i switched to books, because it´s so easy and fast to just do a little drawing and then continue later if I don´t finish it. Drawing on loose papers often makes me feel like I have to finish something, or that the result should be of good quality. My sketchbooks are very free from pressure, I don´t try to accomplish that much in them.
Q.
How does this kind of work complement your career or job?
A.
I draw a lot of inspiration from my work, since it has a lot to do with art and creative processes, and the sketchbooks/journals let me spill all that out in a simple way. I try out different techniques, I sometimes do my student´s exercises just to try them out, and I also pick ideas from my sketchbooks to my teaching. But the sketchbooks are also a place to let off steam. At work I have to plan everything, prepare material and be ready when a class starts. In my sketchbooks I hardly plan anything, I just grab a pen and start drawing. In many ways my work and my sketchbook habit are opposites, and I need them both. They balance each other.
Q.
What do you enjoy most?
A.
Oh wow, hard question... I think getting in "the zone" while drawing. You know, when you concentrate so much on what you do, that you loose track of time, it´s just you, the pen and that subject you are trying to capture. It´s very soothing, calming and afterwards I always feel like I wake up, or come back to the world, somehow. Must be what meditation is for some people.
Q.
Do you have a favorite medium or approach?
A.
Ink pens, preferably fountain pens, and watercolours are my favorites. I love trying out other techniques and materials too, and I often do, but I always return to ink and watercolours.
Q.
You do these wonderful composite/montage pages when you’re busy—your vecka pieces, etc. (Does that mean “week” in English?) What inspired you to do those?
A.
Simply lack of time. And yes, ”vecka” means ”week”. Sometimes it´s hard to find the time to do more elaborate drawings, because you´re swamped with work or whatever, and then I just thought it would be better to draw very little almost every day than drawing nothing for many days. And if I do that on the same page and keep to the same technique or some kind of theme for a whole week, I´m going to end up with something that looks very well thought-out even though it isn´t. And it´s really fun to see where you end up if you just keep on patiently working on the same page for several days.
Q.
You used stencils and texturing tricks in your paintings, do you ever use
them in your journals? (Any of the images you sent me?)
A.
I haven´t used much of that at all in my journals, though lately I have put a few tiny simple stencils in a pocket at the back of my sketchbook to see if I can do something interesting with them.
My paintings are quite different to my sketchbook pages. I´m sure there are things in both that make them recognizable as my work, but they ARE different. And I have been thinking a lot about how to combine these two ways of working, either by bringing my painting manner into my journals or vice versa. I´m trying to experiment with that now that I´m working on a new series of paintings.
Q.
How do you decide to design a page?
A.
I usually don´t decide anything, I just start drawing. After a while I might decide to have a line around the whole drawing, or a bit of text in it or whatever, but I never plan that ahead. Or at least very
seldom.
Perhaps when you're as talented as Nina, design just happens!
-------------
As noted, Nina will be teaching at the second Urban Sketchers Symposium in Lisbon this July. She'll be giving a workshop with fellow urban sketcher José Louro --it'll we be terrific!
She experiments with new techniques, colors and tools, and generously shares with all of us on her blog--it's one of my favorites.
Nina records her travels in her journals, as many of us do...her skill really shows, and invites us right along with her.
I asked Nina to tell us a bit about herself...and here's her introduction:
”Hometown” is a tricky word for me. I was born in Gävle in Sweden in 1970, then then family moved north to Umeå when I was nine. If someone asks, I call Umeå my hometown, though I still have a soft spot in my heart for Gävle. When I was twenty six, I thought I knew Umeå by heart, and couldn´t quite find my future there, so I moved to Stockholm – a dream I had had for years then. Now Stockholm has become my hometown too, so these days it seems I am ”going home” no matter which direction I´m travelling in Sweden.
 |
| This is one of the wonderful journal page sketches from Nina's kitchen window...she draws it in all seasons. |
--------------------
Thanks, Nina, good to "meet" you! And now let's jump right into the interview...
Q.
How long have you been journaling? Did you always do an art journal, and how has it evolved?
A.
No, I didn´t always journal. I would say I started journaling, or drawing in sketchbooks instead of on loose papers, some time in 2005. I have always been drawing, in pads, on loose papers, on big and small surfaces, even in sketchbooks, but I only drew a few pages and then went on to some other kind of paper. But in 2004-5 drawing became more and more important to me, and I had a feeling that I should start working more consciously, and collect my drawings in a better way, keep track of them, not spread them around so much. And as soon as I started drawing in a book, and jotting down the date every now and then, it became a journal, not 'just drawings'. It became in a way a chronological record of my days. Not every day, and not
everything I do, but still.
And as every other person I know who draws in a sketchbook, I remember everything around the drawings, like the place I did them in, the weather, the smell in the air on that day, what people were saying around me and so on. I also started drawing much more when i switched to books, because it´s so easy and fast to just do a little drawing and then continue later if I don´t finish it. Drawing on loose papers often makes me feel like I have to finish something, or that the result should be of good quality. My sketchbooks are very free from pressure, I don´t try to accomplish that much in them.
Q.
How does this kind of work complement your career or job?
A.
I draw a lot of inspiration from my work, since it has a lot to do with art and creative processes, and the sketchbooks/journals let me spill all that out in a simple way. I try out different techniques, I sometimes do my student´s exercises just to try them out, and I also pick ideas from my sketchbooks to my teaching. But the sketchbooks are also a place to let off steam. At work I have to plan everything, prepare material and be ready when a class starts. In my sketchbooks I hardly plan anything, I just grab a pen and start drawing. In many ways my work and my sketchbook habit are opposites, and I need them both. They balance each other.
Q.
What do you enjoy most?
A.
Oh wow, hard question... I think getting in "the zone" while drawing. You know, when you concentrate so much on what you do, that you loose track of time, it´s just you, the pen and that subject you are trying to capture. It´s very soothing, calming and afterwards I always feel like I wake up, or come back to the world, somehow. Must be what meditation is for some people.
Q.
Do you have a favorite medium or approach?
A.
Ink pens, preferably fountain pens, and watercolours are my favorites. I love trying out other techniques and materials too, and I often do, but I always return to ink and watercolours.
You do these wonderful composite/montage pages when you’re busy—your vecka pieces, etc. (Does that mean “week” in English?) What inspired you to do those?
A.
Simply lack of time. And yes, ”vecka” means ”week”. Sometimes it´s hard to find the time to do more elaborate drawings, because you´re swamped with work or whatever, and then I just thought it would be better to draw very little almost every day than drawing nothing for many days. And if I do that on the same page and keep to the same technique or some kind of theme for a whole week, I´m going to end up with something that looks very well thought-out even though it isn´t. And it´s really fun to see where you end up if you just keep on patiently working on the same page for several days.
Q.
You used stencils and texturing tricks in your paintings, do you ever use
them in your journals? (Any of the images you sent me?)
A.
I haven´t used much of that at all in my journals, though lately I have put a few tiny simple stencils in a pocket at the back of my sketchbook to see if I can do something interesting with them.
My paintings are quite different to my sketchbook pages. I´m sure there are things in both that make them recognizable as my work, but they ARE different. And I have been thinking a lot about how to combine these two ways of working, either by bringing my painting manner into my journals or vice versa. I´m trying to experiment with that now that I´m working on a new series of paintings.
Q.
How do you decide to design a page?
A.
I usually don´t decide anything, I just start drawing. After a while I might decide to have a line around the whole drawing, or a bit of text in it or whatever, but I never plan that ahead. Or at least very
seldom.
Perhaps when you're as talented as Nina, design just happens!
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As noted, Nina will be teaching at the second Urban Sketchers Symposium in Lisbon this July. She'll be giving a workshop with fellow urban sketcher José Louro --it'll we be terrific!
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