Monday, April 28, 2008

Drawings from the play "Ordet"


Earlier on this month Theatre drawer Flemming Nyborg from Politiken, invited me to come with him to a play at the Royal Theatre and sit with him and the other newpaper theatre drawers: Tove Nørgaard (JP), Erik Werner (WA) and Claus Seidel. The play we were going to draw was "Ordet" by danish poet and priest Kaj Munk. A play about having true faith in God and miracles.
It's a huge challenge to try and capture not only the characteristics of the actors, but also the drama, from first row. Well this was my debut, I had a lot of fun and hopefully I will get better by time, so it'll look more like a drawing and less like a wanna-be poster.

Thanks for stopping by
Erik

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Bookcover "Queen of the Mine" / "Minens Dronning"





I just did this bookcover for the brand new publishinghouse Abeland.
This is book number five in this "X-files"-series (lakes skinnende laksegl) for young readers. You can read about book four here
Three friends: Magus, Ingemann and Jesper are invited to examine a strange mine in England by a strange old woman . Through this tale the boys are encounter by ancient religious sects, mysterious symbols and getting lost in a dark mine shaft with their headlights not working...... among other events. the book will come out later this year.
The book is written and published by Andreas Møller and his father Birger Møller.
Here is the final cover with type, the line drawing and the sketch process.

Getting lost without GPS

the new kidpages




The first edition of, the new version of the spread for kids in Samvirke, "Æseløret" is about insects.
Here is the spread with and without type. And some of the bugs I sketched in my sketchbook.
It's so nice to sketch on toned paper, the colors become more vibrant and with a Posca-marker it's easy to "cut out" the character from the background.

sketching and developing the new kids page logo

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Redesigning the kids-pages


Since january 2006 I have been doing the layout and illustrations for the two-spread kids-pages "Æseløret" in danish magazine Samvirke.
From next month the pages will be looking different: There will only be one spread, it will a very short story and a described activity - not multiple text dealing with a topic from different angle and with the different aspects of the topic/ theme. The age group has been moved down to age 2-5, from age 10 - 14 as it has been since we started. This means, that from month of May the text/ the story is meant to be read by the parent to the child, instead of being something the kid read on their own. The spreads will be a social event, instead of just wiki-knowledge for pre-teens. I'm glad I get to be a part of this, and be involved in the development of the new concept. The content will still be written by Turbine Forlaget.
The new concept with one text instead of many, will open up new illustration opportunities for me. My illustrations are always getting over-crowded and suffer from horror-vacuri, hopefully the new and more simple concept will allow the spread to 'breathe', now I only have to focus on one story and not multiple scattered text pieces.

I have posted the new logo/ letterhead for the kids-pages.
I will post the new spread at the end of this month.

Thanks for reading
Erik