London Zoo 2014 part 1

I took the day off and went to the Zoo.

To parents and teachers who let their kids run ape shit and to people who bang on windows and use flash photography and scare the animals even though there are signs every where asking you politely not to - stay at home.

It's the third time that I visit London Zoo and I have mixed feelings about visiting Zoo's - the ego part of me love the fact that I can get up and close to a couple of gorgeous cheetas like this, but at the same time I see how frustrated the male is looking and how they are walking round in circles and seem unbelievably bored - but without the zoo maybe they wouldn't even be alive? But lets not go down that route now as I haven't had my morning coffee, in a perfect world we wouldn't need zoo's, now I am just thrilled to see all these amazing creatures up close and is very amazed about all the creatures that we have on this planet. I got extremely close to the cheetas, so close that I couldn't focus my camera properly, they are impressively gracious and can run go from 0 to 70km an hour in less then a second.

Hemma hos mig

For the first time in 9 years, basically for as long as I have lived in London, I don't live in a total shit hole, I live in a flat that has Swedish living standard and is really nice and to celebrate that I took some pics to show how I live and work. I don't have a flashy studio, my studio is basically a metre from where I sleep and has a nice, big window where I can see Canary Wharf, the Gherkin and big parts of London. I even have access to a small balcony where my pet lives, I am not sure if its a she or a he, very hard to tell when it comes to squirrels, but I call my uninvited pet Bruce after Bruce Willis as he/she so brutally slaughtered every plant and bush I had no matter the size. One day all the plants on the balcony was dead, the next day all their leafs were gone and then I noticed that the little bugger had killed all the plants to take the leafs as well as the biggest ceramic pot and build a nest in it. Squirrels are super cute so I don't mind, who knows, maybe there will be little ones on my balcony soon?

This is were I work but I have to confess, I often draw in bed at nite, a lot of my drawings has been made in bed as I seem to be struck with ideas just before I pass out. Later I clean them up or colour them in at my desk, that normally isn't this empty and tidy - normally its papers every where. I love my desk, its a retro dining table that I found for £20 in a junk sale, no matter where I will go in the world this table is coming with me. 

And that's it, my bed and yes, as you can see I am awful, I have my own prints and cushions and stuff every where, but part of why I started making things was because I was tired of all super commercial designs and wanted more quirky stuff, so I started making them myself.

I am very tired of American films where you know the end before the film even started and you feel slightly insulted as they seem to think their viewers IQ is on a level where you are just about being able to eat, shit and function, and I have over dozed on the brilliant TED Talks so for now I am trying to read more and thought that it might be about time to read some of the big classics, right now I am digging through all the works of Oscar Wilde. If you have any tips of books to read before you die then please let me know.

That's it. I am off to bed to draw!

Lazy Sunday in Hampstead Heath

One of the great things about London is that there is plenty of amazing parks and green spaces to escape to when you want to get away from the busy crowds, traffic and polution. One of them, Hampstead Heath, is about 20min from where I live and I love to go there. Hampstead Heath is not a boring flat park with a few trees, it is a big area with hills, meadows, forests and a lot of ponds, some of them you can actually even swim in, above is a picture of the men's pond and some pics from last Sunday when the sun was shining in London and I went to Hampstead Heath with some friends to have a nap on a field and enjoy the silence.

Sneak Peek, Bat Country Collective at Craft Coffee, Shoreditch

Here's a little sneak peek from the ongoing exhibition with my collective over at Craft Coffee in Shoredicth, London. The exhibition is up and running until 30/6 - big thanks to Orhan who was our drilling super hero and helped us set everything up!

If you would like more info about Bat Country Collective and to stay updated with what we do, then come and join us on Instagram and Tumblr.

Bat Country is borned

I have been working with the super talented illustrators Karin and Dani on a few projects and always really enjoyed it and also always thought that our three different styles really work well together and that the three of us have a quirky feel to our work that I really like so why don't we start a artist collective and start working on more projects together?

Said and done and our Bat Country collective started now in May and tomorrow we start our first exhibition at the lovely Craft Coffee is east London. The exhibition is up an running between 3/6-30/6, come by for east London's best coffee and a illustration feast!

Craft Coffee
68 Sclater Street
E1 6HR Shoreditch

http://instagram.com/batcountrycollective