Hello you!

Working on a gigantic print to the upcoming "Man's Best Friend..?" exhibition at Fika, here's a sneak peek.

Exhibition time - sketch book up!

Hi,

It's nice to finally have some time to draw again!  Currently I am working on new prints for a upcoming exhibition with Bat Country Collective, the name of the exhibition is "Man's Best Friend" and at the moment I have so many ideas that I think that my brain will explode and the ones that I have tested so far I am not really happy with so I have a few very busy weeks ahead. Wish me luck!




































I have been fascinated in how some people have close relationships with wild animals for a very long time and have spent hours watching youtube videos of people cuddling with their cheetahs, lions and tigers, playing and swimming with wolfs, foxes and even white sharks and polar-bears. There's a lot that could be said about this, personally I don't even have a cat as I think it would be cruel in my tiny flat with no garden and of course I would much rather have a lion running free in the wild then being someone's pet but let's leave that debate aside and just look at the relationship that some people have with their animals for now and also remember that not all of these animals have been captured, some have been saved by humans and would not have been alive without them.

I would like to share one of the films I have been watching with you, it's about Chito & Pocho in Costa Rica, a man and his best friend, a crocodile - watch it and try to not be amazed.

Time to wake up from the winter sleep and play!

I have been hibernating for a while but now I am slowly coming back to life!

For me it has always been important to play and experiment, I never wanted to work in just one way and in one style - I find that quite unchallenging and boring and want to develop and try new things.

Currently I am getting bits and pieces together, running around London with my camera and has started to play with my ideas for a new print and pattern collection, this time I will work with mixed media and graphics.

I like to work with collage now and then as it's a very different way of working and feels more free and less controlled then drawing and I can get some use of my love for photography.

Let's see how it goes.

Beware of Sneaky Ice creams!

Here's a little sneak peek of what I am working on at the moment, we are getting our Bat Country Collective website together and are all making banners for it, my banner has some very sneaky ice creams in it and what ever you do you should not mess with the ice lolly!

There's a short but slightly different interview with me up on BCC's blog, to read it and to check out what we have been up to please click here and stay tuned as all the Bat Country Collective members has interviews coming up shortly!

WIP10 over at The Wallery

Psst. The Wallery has written a nice little blog post about my work that you can read over here.

Hello there...

I am working on a few new, fun projects and thought I'd share some work in progress here on the blog. The black stripes with the black rabbit is in its simplicity slowly growing to a favourite of mine;



I will show the final project and the final prints in a few weeks time when its all finished, here's another sneaky rabbit until then!

Work in Progress: Thursdays at the Roller-skate Disco

Sneak peek, work in progress; Thursdays at the Roller-skate Disco. 

PS. For Monster's only.

Doodle-di-do

Here's a sneak peek from a new project that I am working on, the only thing I can say is that it will be a very packed roller skating disco and that I am having lot's of fun!

Pop corn

My obsession with giraffes and graphics is not over yet and I am working on yet another pattern and here's a little sneak peek, I call it Pop corn and I think that this one is my favourite so far, it might be the 80's colour scheme that makes it so special for me, I grew up with these colours, perms & to much hair spray, Depeche Mode & Madonna, Dallas, V and Falcon Crest - all the pastel colours makes me a bit sentimental.

What else is new?

I find it strange that there are so few illustration exhibitions and shows in a city like London, that probably has 10 illustrators per square metre and is such a mecca for culture and art, so I am trying to change that and is organising and putting together some shows of my own and I am very pleased to say that a have an amazing bunch of illustrators with me so stay tuned for more info and if you have a gallery or a space and would like to host a illustration show then please do get in touch!


PS. Thanks for all the feedback and comments on previous posts, I really appreciate it!

Monsters & Coffee

I hate, hate, hate, hate being photographed and prefer to be on the other side of the camera. But I need some images of me at work for a new project so I asked Dani to help me and take some pics of me drawing and here are some of them, thank you Dani! I know it was not an easy task as I do everything to avoid being in a picture... which I think you can almost tell from my face expression above.







I have had a great day, had a coffee with the brilliant illustrator Danijela Dobric, (you should definitely check out her work if you aren't already familiar with it, if you click on her name there's a link to her website) and drew an army of monsters for a really fun project that I am working on, here you can see some of them;



This is just a ruff sketch,  I am not happy with this monster but love the face expression, looks so unbelievably lost, but I think this one might be a bit better;




That's it from me for now.

Monster Friday

Today I am a lucky girl and can do one of the things I love the most; surface design and drawing characters. Today's theme is monsters and the coffee pot is full, the play list is loaded, the sun is shining and I am really excited about a new project that I am involved with - I could not ask for a better Friday.

Here's a little sneak peek from my sketchbook and some work in progress, but I think that these monsters are way to well behaved and cute for me so I have to get back to my sketch book for some more wacky monsters, the kind that you would not like to have around your house.

Have a lovely weekend 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.

Man Eating Tigers and Fika

Here's a man-eating-tiger in progress for a new project.

I thought that there's a lot of super talented and inspiring Swedish illustrators who live and work in London and that it would be great to meet them all and do some kind of project together, hmm…

Then while walking pass the Swedish cafe Fika on Brick Lane, that has a lot of original Swedish illustrations on their walls (and the most delicious ice teas known to man kind), I came up with the idea, why not show Swedish illustrations in the most Swedish place in east London, Fika?

Now I am working on the upcoming exhibition and is very happy about having some of my favourite Swedish illustrators with me;  Hanna Melin, Martin Wollerstam, Danijela Dobric, Emma Löfström and Karin Söderquist - I am really looking forward to it!

The exhibition will start in the beginning of September so now I am busy creating my art work for the show, I will keep you posted!

And yes, of course there will be lots of man eating animals! ;)

Nothing Lasts Forever

I am like a little ray of sunlight today.

Beach Out fragments

Work in progress, brainstorming and playing. There's something that I really like about this.

My Desk

This is my desk where I work. It looks quite tidy at the moment I have to confess, probably because I just had a swipe clean and filled a drawer unit under the desk with sketches, paper, pens, glue sticks and God knows what. I do collect things, especially pens, paper and doodles, I already have a large box under my bed filled...but how do you throw away drawings? I find it extremely hard.

At the moment I am testing my birthday hamster as a print, I like him in the silver frame on my desk but I am not sure yet. You can get a glimpse of other stuff I am working on on my wall, new hand collage prints and some 50's inspired portraits but it looks a bit warped in the photo, probably because my wall is not straight.

Now I am gonna crash into bed.

Friday Goat

Here is some work in progress, I hope to get some time to sit down and finish this project soon, a massive print with happy goats hi jacking a playground, the stupid thing is that I am completely blocked about drawing in A3 and A2 size and then I have problems scanning it properly. Hmm...need to re program my brain into drawing smaller, this might take a while...

Party, party... again

Here's a little sneak preview of some more of my work for that children's songbook that I am working on, have a nice weekend everyone!

The Wild West in Progress

Here's a glimpse of my hand drawn Cowboy/ Wild West Project, I haven't had time to work on it for quite a while but hope to get back into it soon. Here's Clint in progress for now, I haven't drawn humans for ages so I find it hard now and have started to think a bit to much instead of just drawing, have to start getting back into it and remember that I do not want it to look realistic and pretty anyway, but, I do want it to be clear who the Clint is :)

Play

Slightly bored even-though I have plenty of work to do, need something new to plunge into and has hooked up with a few illustration and design friends to plan a exhibition for the beginning of next year, fun, fun fun!

Here's a good talk with Stefan Sagmeister about the importance of time off and playing, so I am having a little play today and the images above was what I came up with.

And yes, one more thing, I started to sell my prints in a few shops here in UK and US but I would love to sell some in Sweden as well but don't know any shops dedicated to independent art and design, if you happen to know of any please let me know!

Cheers!