Ho ho ho

GOD JUL & GOTT NYTT ÅR!

Which means Merry Christmas and Happy New Year in Swedish - Thanks for 2012 everyone!

xxx

I Like: Santogold

It makes me so unbelievably happy when a woman hits the music industry with integrity and refuse to bend her back and objectify herself but knows what she wants and how she wants it, and when she actually has skills, soul and brain it is even better. Santogold is one of them and I cannot believe that she has not been grammy nominated or got more of her tracks on rotation, this song writer and artist is amazing so I had to make sure you have not missed her, so here's some Santogold classics for you;

Santogold L.E.S Artistes

Santogold Creator

Santogold Starstruck

Bilingual by Music "Kids Songs - English and Swedish Children's Favourites"

Happy days, now it's out! The new double CD "Kids Songs - English and Swedish Children's Favourites" from Bilingual By Music that I illustrated & art directed and my copy just fell down through the mail box so I have tried to take some photos of it to show you and finally I think I should also explain and write some about the project itself, I think Bilingual by Music does it best so I nicked this from their website; 

'For bilingual families and everyone else who wants to practice their language skills in a fun and easy way. Music and nursery rhymes are a big part of children’s lives all over the world. Some songs are only sung within a certain culture or country. However, there are some tunes that have travelled far beyond their origin and become well known and loved across many countries and cultures. We all know the melody but the language and the meaning is often representative of that culture or country.

We have embraced this fact and created a fun, bilingual musical environment for children to easily learn these nursery rhymes in each language. Our first products will focus on the Swedish-English relationship"

The two cd's contain classic children songs as "My hat it has three corners", "Twinkle twinkle little star", "Eensy weensy spider" and "Old MacDonald" and is packed in a booklet where each song is represented in Swedish and English with my illustrations.

For more information about Bilingual by Music and this project, where you can purchase the album, listen to snippets etc please click here

There is also a interview with me about this project over at Bilingual by Music that you can read if you click here. 

This has been a really great project and I am really happy to have been asked to be a part of it and that guitar playing crocodiles and rock n roll goats were accepted and that I could do my quirky thing, I hope you like it!

Sauna time

Here's a little ice-skating sketch that I never finished

I like winter. Where I am from we used to have lot's and lot's of snow, we ice skated and went skiing with school as well as with our parents, sat on frozen lakes and drank hot chocolate and built snow tunnel systems and caves and could spend hours and hours outdoors.

Now I am old, grown up. Boring. And there is no snow even though it is very, very cold in London at the moment.

So, no ice skating, no skiing,  and definitely no snow tunnels. But it's okay as I can't stand how cold it is, it feels much colder here in London now then it felt in the north of Sweden when it was -20C!

…or maybe I am just getting old? Either way, I am going to the closest swimming hall and sauna instead to defrost!

I hope that you are enjoying the winter where ever you are!

Bilingual by Music

Do you remember the children's song book that I was working on for Bilingual by Music? I am super excited, it should come from the printer any day now! Here's a little sneak peek while waiting, Klappa händerna när du är riktigt glad / If you are happy and you know it and Huvud, axlar, knän och tår / Head, shoulders, knees and toes.

Mint

Mint © Åsa Wikman



Gold © Åsa Wikman


Lately I have been working on a new pattern collection and now I just finished it and is celebrating with a nice cup of tea and thought I'd share a little sneak peek from the new collection with you, so here is two of my new patterns, Mint and Gold, what do you think?

I have always enjoyed working with graphic shapes and photography so this time I thought that I would base the new collection around that and plunge into it, and as a child of the 80's I wanted to go back to the 80's colour palette with pastel pinks and bubblegum colours. I like the contrast between sterile and controlled graphics and black and white photography of real living animals.


PS. There's a short interview with me regarding my latest projects in Lemonade Magazine 04, to read the interview click here

Sunday at the cemetary

I told my boyfriend that I had it with shops, crowds, traffic and pollution and that I am from the north of Sweden and need some damn air to breath, some trees and something a bit spiritual which I do not consider shopping or hanging in cafe's to be. London does that to me sometimes, I get enough, I need space, I need nature, I need to sit by the ocean and read a book, go to a lake for a swim or take the bike through the forest - I sound like a real city girl don't I?

He knows me by now and knows that when I start googling Stockholm flats or life in Costa Rica it is time to drag me to the closest coastal town or forest. This time we went to High gate Cemetery and their east wing, a Victorian cemetery which for many years was abandoned and now is an overgrown jungle of beautifully decayed graves (over 52 000 graves) from a lost time. Karl Marx has his resting place with a lot of celebrities on the west side of the cemetery but we focused on the secluded eat section that you can only get access to via a guided tour. It felt like walking around in a Miyazaki film, very magical.






It was what I needed, now I feel better and get deal with the big town again. Here are some photos from the day, unfortunately the guided tour was on a very strict schedule so it was hard to get a chance to take pictures. I might try and go back in summer time and get lost with my camera...






I took a picture of this grave to remember the destiny of the woman which grave it is, like many women during Victorian times she died as her massive dress caught fire.

Tea and doodle time. Have a nice Sunday everyone.

Giraff-o-mania

I am currently working on a new pattern collection but this time I have left the pencils and instead grabbed my camera and has chosen to work with graphics, shapes and colours. It might be an effect of the depressing grey weather outside but I am very found of bold colours right now.  Here's a little sneak peak of some work in progress.

© Åsa Wikman

PS. To get $5 off any of my products over at Society6, click here: Society6
The offer ends the 11th of November.

Gardening

Working on something new and this little gardening dude might be a part of it.

Wroom wroom

I love doodling, here's a happy little guy on his bike.

I am at home sick - yes, still! I just had a cold and did get better and then BAM, next week - chest infection.

I just realised how many times I have blogged about that I am ill…a bit scary. I have asthma so a normal cold often gives me a chest infection (my neighbours love me and my all night long coughing).

But it makes me think though, how often I am ill here in London.

I was lucky enough to get two holidays this year, a few days in Paris and a week in Spain - and I did not need to use my asthma spray once. So I basically know that living in London is making me ill and the fact they planted like 20 new trees in town is not going to cut it so I know it will not change and that if I want to be healthier I will have to move.

Hmm…not sure where to go though so I will stick with a few chest infections now and then until I have figured it out ;)

Time for tea.

Creativity & Others

Here are two very inspirational talks about creativity and the current school system but also about following your heart and not listening to much to others. Both of these talks ticked my boxes and I am very glad to have found them, hope they inspire you to!

Today I was computing

Just a little doodle...

Budgie Love in Vogue

What a great Friday I am having, my Budgie Love wallpaper is featured in British Vogue!

To read the full article, 'The Influence of Fashion Pets", click here

Have a nice weekend everyone!

HUBYO Top 100 TEES

I had a great start to my Monday, my "I Love My Bike" and "Budgie Love" t-shirt designs has been listed as two of the 100 best t-shirt designs around, thanks for that HUBYO!

To see all the t-shirts click here

Patterns in Nature: Minerals

I went to my favourite museum in London today, the Natural History Museum. But I forgot that it is a bad idea to go on a Sunday when there are screaming kids all over the place and then at the museum surrounded by screaming kids the fever came back so it ended up being a bit of a hellish experience that ended up with an early escape and a few painkillers. But I love that museum and wanted to share some pictures from their mineral collection. I find it absolutely mind blowing what nature creates and shapes and for a long time I have wanted to make a pattern collection inspired by all these amazing patterns and colour schemes that you can find in stones and minerals but I haven't sat down and done it yet, aren't they amazing?

New Society6

Hello again!

I have got a nasty cold and is at home trying to kill the bug by eating lots of ginger, chilli and garlic and drinking lot's and lot's of tea. I gave myself a little mini mission from bed today, to create a new Society6 account, something strange happened with the old one and I couldn't access it any more but now I am back up there again and think I will try and be bit more active then before. Society6 has added a lot more products to their range which I have to confess makes me a bit excited.

At Society6 I will sell Art Prints (printed on natural white, matte, ultra smooth, 100% cotton rag, acid and lignin free archival paper) and Canvases (on fine poly-cotton blend, matte canvases) and later on I might add some Iphone cases, stationery cards, laptop and Ipad skins - how fun is that?

If you would like to have a little look at my shop then click here

Stay away from flu and have a nice evening!

Oops...

I have not been very good at blogging lately, one reason is that I start finding it boring, another one is that I have a large pile of work to dig into and lately I felt completely drained so everything is moving in half speed. I think its the lack of summer and sunlight that done it and now the autumn has sneaked up on us and slapped us in the face and all I want to do is to stay in bed and eat. I do not like to feel constantly tired and I am not ready for autumn, I am still waiting for summer 2012!

During the last week I found out that no one that I talked with here in London actually knew about the recent mass demonstrations in Moscow and Madrid, am I the only one who find that frightening? Where do you live? Did mass media in your country report about the mass demonstrations in Moscow, Madrid, Portugal, Athens and Barcelona now in September or do you not read or watch the news?

Anyway, I am in bed gaining weight and the construction of my political strategies and my master plan will have to wait until I have gained enough to handle the British weather.

Time for tea.

Monday. Nuff Said.

I liked my pms unicorn sketch so much that I have decided to turn it into a print and maybe a postcard, what do you think?

I thought that it might need a pun and have a really stupid one as my sense of humour is a bit strange, but now looking at it I think it might just be nice the way it it.

Either way, it truly reflects my mood today on this stormy, grey, rainy Monday.

Paris pt 2

Sunday morning and I have not had my morning coffee yet so my writing might not make any sense what so ever but I promised to show some more photos from Paris and here they are, Paris pt2. Some mixed images from Nation where I lived (and where I found the best priced and nicest food), and a market in the North that I cannot remember the name of, it was so huge that I only did a quarter of it in day and it had two sections, one with mass produced crap and one with second hand and vintage products that I focused on and that was really good. At the market there were a few pistols from the 20's and the 30's, see how small it is? Made me think of James Bond movies and spy films.

If you wonder why there are so much pictures of cakes then it is because I as a child thought that being a baker most be the best job in the world. Imagine creating all these amazing cakes and breads and inventing new looks, shapes and combinations of flavours and then, best of all, being able to eat how much you want.  Today I just love to try and test cakes in different countries and Sweden and German are currently in a battle of having the best cakes but after my trip to Paris I am afraid that France has joined the competition.

Here in Britain there is no real bread culture (not that I have found after living here for 6 years but maybe I have missed some magical place where they do real bread?) and very hard to find nice, healthy good, decent bread - in Germany the bread is mind blowing, when you see and try the varieties you feel as if you been ripped of your entire life and that what you thought was bread was a very sad tasteless and unsuccessful imitation.

Are there not any German bakers who can start a bakery here in east London? You would become filthy rich from the international community who miss real bread.

Anyway, bread and cakes are important ;)

Let's Fika! Private View

Last night we started the Let's Fika! exhibition and I had a great time, thanks to all the artists who took part, to Fika, and to everyone who came and made it the great night it was! ♥

Here's a little sneak peek from the evening, I had such a good time that I forgot to take pictures until it was to dark and hard to get any good ones but here is at least something;










The show will be up and running until the 14th of October so instead of looking at my blurry images go to Fika and see the real thing;

Fika Bar & Kitchen
161 Brick Lane
London E1 65B