Portraits, self love and artist book

Planning ahead is an integral part om autumn for me. I see it as a defence mechanism against the dark months of the year. Right now it feels like it's a long way to February when the light starts coming back. Visualising and planning for the coming spring and summer both gives me energy and inspiration to create art and try out new ideas.

So.... so far two exhibitions are booked - Easter open studio days and a solo exhibition at Linnés Kammare just outside Uppsala. But there are more venues I'm going to apply for. It's a perfect way to avoid procrastination and stagnation as I have to produce new work.

Almost always the way to new exhibition pieces goes through the long and fun road of art play. My way of playing is by making artist books, ink drawings and monotypes on cheap paper. The cheaper the materials, the less precious I get with what I create. Which is a huge release for creativity (as most creatives know) :-)

So so far this month I've painted and drawn quite a large number of self portraits, made a mock-up for a new artist book based on linocut and started a new painting in the Embrace series that's already giving me the grief - so I just put it aside. I don't need that kind of negativity in my life right now :-p

On my instagram you can see a little example of how studio play can look like.