I absolutely love the work of Magdalena Andersson and right now she has a solo exhibition at galleri Vågen.

They've done a great work hanging the paintings, and the gallery is such a nice place.

This was one of my favorites. The photo doesn't make it justice -I cant shoot glass without catching the reflections.

This was one of my favorites. The photo doesn't make it justice -I cant shoot glass without catching the reflections.

I got these two postcards with me home. Magdalena captures the contrasts 'now & then' in such a great way. A lot of her paintings have a story and the people you see here are family members of hers. The postcard below of her granddad reminds me so much of my own grand-granddad!

Make sure to go and check it out, last day is the 15th of June and the entrance is free.

This is how it might look like when I work on an oil on paper. First I have some sort of inspiration. This is the hand of Stenen, who runs the gallery and art store Konstgruvan in Karlstad. I asked if I could take a photo of him while holding this ice cream. We tried different angles and then I chose to use this photo as my source of inspiration. 

I prefer to have a photo to look at, otherwise the angles might get completely wrong. This doesn't mean that I copy the photo a 100%. Not even when I paint my realistic oils on canvas. Sometimes I make up things, backgrounds etc, or I combine different elements from different photos. 

Even if I used the photo above as a reference, the hand doesn't look the same, I removed the napkin and the ice cream is completely different (shape, color, texture). I added a little bit of artistic freedom so to say.

I like working with different textures. The ice cream has got a thick layer of paint and I didn't blend the colors too much. The cone has more of a wet-in-wet texture, and for the hand I've used short brush strokes. Now it just has to dry! 

One of the main reasons why I write this blog is because I love reading about others painting inspiration and little work secrets. The thing about artists is that you don't often see all the work that lays behind what they do, what you see is the final result (a sculpture, a painting...). Since I myself would like to read about this, I figured I had to share my own work process too.

Guess if I was happy when I got to know that Joel Rea (one of my inspirations) was about to share his inspirations through the Instagram account Paintguide.

Amongst his sources of inspiration you'll find the work of Dali, James Gleeson, Jeffrey Smart, Rodney Matthews and more (I have to check them out more properly). Joel Rea seems to have been inspired by surrealism, comics, fantasy and realism.

His own work is amazing, check this one out:

All photos are from their Instagram accounts.

This got me thinking about my own early inspirations, and Lena Furberg definitely is one of them. She's a comic illustrator for the magazine "Min Häst" (my horse).

I remember no other horse series was comparable to hers. I especially liked the detailing and proportions in her work. I could sit for hours studying the lines and then try to make my own version of it.

Think of it for a second, what was your source of inspiration early in life?

Today I choose to be happy, what do you choose?

This forum is mainly about art, but I'll share this with you anyways. Rut, the tibbie, is gone. She was extremely allergic and was suffering so bad she couldn't think of anything else than scratching herself.  She's been on heavy medication and special treatments but it didn't help much at all. Rut has always had a very special place in my heart and she has had such a great impact on me. The bond and the love you get from an animal is incomparable. 

Some of her puppies:

With her best friend:

Not too long ago:

RIP dear friend!

I've been to Karlstad today to look at some printing paper with a fellow artist amongst other things. I've tried Hahnemuhle before, but what we looked at today was Canon paper. (I really liked Hahnemuhle Photo Rag though). At the Canon store they have a book with all the different papers. 

And giant posters:

My kind of paintings don't work that well on structured paper, so maybe it will work with some kind of matte/satin photo paper. 

Then I got some really bad news, I need to process it a little bit before writing about it. Maybe tomorrow. 

When I find things that inspire me, I take photos of them. My aunt/grandfather had a gorgeous wodden rocking horse when I was little. It didn't look like a toy, but more like a luxurious interior design item and I was so fascinated by it.

Above, photo from Stockholm, below photos from London.

The fascination for rocking horses is still there. I'll probably create something on that theme in the future. Until then, I'll keep on collecting photos :)

As promised (although a little late) here comes two other illustrations from my new series. I already posted these on Instagram - it is easier to post things there. (my instagram: elin_erikson_art).

When I had the mentoring in Stockholm last month, Peter at www.artistlab.se asked me about my interests, because sometimes you can fuse and take inspiration from different areas in life. I love moving my body and working out and maybe, thanks to my interest, I've gotten a sense of anatomy which comes to use while I paint. 

Another thing that has been important to me is to find a long-lasting balance when it comes to eating habits. I don't follow any diet, it wouldn't work for me. But of course I get inspired and also both consciously and subconsciously affected by all the diets and food trends out there. I don't mean to judge because I eat a little bit of everything, but I want to illustrate a phenomenon and different extremes such as raw food versus fast food and processed pastries. Just think about it for a second, what are your opinions about it? Do you get affected and in that case, in a good or a bad way? 

I have one more in the same series and Ive painted it in two different ways. One just like these (one layer of oil on oil paper) and one layered oil painting on canvas. It's my favorite and ill show you in time. The hard thing is to get a good photo when you use bright colors. Red and green are especially hard for me to shoot. The colors become very bright and you cannot see any shades at all, you just get blended by looking at it (I need my photographer!).

I have more ideas for a similar series. I got this really nice flow of new concepts when I was half asleep on the train home from Stockholm two days ago. I try to always write down the ideas I get, either on a piece of paper or in the notes app on the cell phone.

A friend sent me a link to this page where you can see works of Polish Paul Kuczynski. His satiric illustrations make you think twice about hot topics in today's society. Here are some of my favorites:  

You'll find more paintings on his homepage www.pawelkuczynski.com. 

First I was thinking of placing my mom on the card, but this supermom and sex bomb is easier to relate to :)

Everything covered!

Working with layers

I'm not going to spend more time on this one now. It is not going to get more detailed, realistic or perfected. I'm just going to let it dry for the last tim and then I'll put a frame on it. A black one will look good :)

This is quite a small painting; 30*40cm if I'm not mistaken. Want this on your wall? Use this email: info@elinerikson.com