Secret rooms and caves

sustainability thinking within warfare

Swedish company Hagglunds has developed the SEP (Spitterskyddad Enhets Platform) a new tank, that gives a number of advantages, including volume efficiency, fuel efficiency, reduced life cycle costs and reduced environmental impact. Put in other words: we can now go to war with the climate in mind. War with a good consciense.

Horrorstories for kids

I just finished the cover and inside illustrations for a new horrorstory book for kids by danish author Kenneth bøgh Andersen.
The book contains four short stories and will be published in january/ february.

IF: Germs is the theme for these magazinespreads for kids

A while ago I did these spreads for the biggest subscription magazine here in Denmark. I drew, came up with ideas for themes and quizzes and did all the graphic layout every month for three years. You can see other examples of the spreads I did hereand here and here.
Thanks for reading
Erik

The Boys Who Saved The World -bookcover

A 16 year old school boy, Jon, joins a new school and gets sucked into a secret religious group called The Brotherhood of Hebetheus. They believe they can bring peace to the world. They're all white and faintly misogynistic without being aware of it. They become convinced that an Asian girl at their school is a terrorist (in a clever twist they assume with their racist prejudices that she is a Muslim but she is later revealed to a Hindu) and kidnap her, running away to a cottage in the remote countryside. From there they send out videos to the government and media with demands to change the terror laws and give their religion status...

This book is an amazing pageturner. The pace rockets along, rising to a bloody climax and a shock ending that leaves you thinking long after you've finished the book.

But whilst teenagers will enjoy the pace, there is also a clever satirical subtext that adults will enjoy. Many of the statements made by Jeremiah, as head of hte Hebetheus, are direct echoes of Bush and Blair's most famous political slogans - 'We must be whiter than white' or 'You are with us or against us'. It's a very clever examination of what happens when people attempt to do good in the name of religion, and end up sliding into cruelty and violence.

Anyone who is interested in the theatrics of the War on Terror should definitely read this book.

Bad Bicycle Behavior

Sketchbookdrawings from France

He is new in town

I did this sketchbook drawing inspired by the paintings I saw in the caves: Rouffignac, Font de Gaume, Los Comberellos and Lascaux during my studytrip with the danish cartoonist society.

Dragon theme for Kidspages

In the East dragons are good and in the West they are mean.....maybe we should rotate dragons every now and then.

IF: "Trick or Treat" - happy Halloween

I did thes drawing a while ago, but they went so well with the theme this week.
The illustrations were done for a section of a magazine intended for kids. The drawing is for a quiz: The kids have to fugure out how far the witch had to travel to gather all her ingredienses for her witch soup. The map at the lefthand corner should give the kids a clue.
The witch on the broomstick is for a 'design a modern broomstick' -competition.

I have designed the compositon so it allows me to fitt text into the image and around it.

You can see the final layout with text and all here:
http://www.erikpetri.dk/for_children/gallery1/children01_07.html

Have a great Halloween
-Erik

IF: "Grow" -concerning the growing population of Red King Crabs

I just did this illustration about invasive species for a magazine.

The red king crab is most commonly caught in the Bering Sea and Norton Sound, Alaska. Recently, an overpopulation of red king crabs in the Barents Sea is causing concern about the local biosystems. It was introduced artificially in the Murmansk Fjord in Russia during the 1960s to provide new catch for the Soviet fishermen. Since its introduction it has spread west along the Norwegian coast and also towards the island group of Svalbard. Environmentalists and some local fishermen fear the crab because it eats everything it comes across and is spreading very rapidly. The red king crab has been moving down the norwegian coastline since 1976 and is slowly heading towards Denmark.

The little orange crab tells her husband with the remote: "It's your cousins from Russia! I hope they are staying just for the weekend..."

IF: "Extremes" -the letter L

An extreme situation. How often do you see a young boy with wings reading a womans magazine?

The letter L, being a consonant, is pronounces as the sound of EL. This is ELSKOV (in English making love), which can be heard as L Skov (an L forrest).......my illustratione of the letter L...well and Cupid is reading Elle..LLLLL

I hope you LLLLLLike it

-Erik

Drawings from the Zoo

I spend three hours drawing animals in Copenhagen Zoo in my sketchbook yesterday with a bunch of collegues.

Posters group 2 and 5 Vollsmosecamp

Vollsmosecamp - the process

Me and my collegue Leo Scherfig (www.thelegalizer.dk) spendt a couple of days at Vollsmose-camp, were we ended up making 7 posters, that summons up the 7 challenges this part of the city is facing.

The proces: Me and Leo were hired though the consultancy company Implement, to summon up the different conversations and discussions and translate it into images and short sentences on a poster.

After day one we worked all night to organize the information, finding the right images and symbols, we could compose a poster with, that would make sense. In the morning we presented the seven results to the seven groups, and like looking in a mirror, they became aware of their message, the challenge. The group were able to get sharper and more specfic with their 'challenge'/theme. Me and Leo then reworked the posters until they said what the seven groups concluded. Then me and Leo went back to Copenhagen and cleaned up the posters. Gave them final touch.

Pictures:
- Me and Leo working within the local church wre the 'camp' was held
- Sketchbook scribling ideas down for posters
- The posters from day 1 and how the changed over day 2
- Final posters for group 2 (ownership) and group 5 (relationship)


It was intense and good experience to be part of the Vollsmose Camp. Creatively challenging!

posters for Vollsmosecamp

Here are the final posters that summon up the experience and knowledge on how to change a 'ghetto' around, the ´Vollsmose konsulatet´ has gathered since 2000.

The themes for the posters are:
- How do we keep people from moving out of Vollsmose as soon as they get a job
- How can we improve healthcare
- How can we as a city utilize the young peoples potential
- How can we brand Vollsmose
- How can we get the city, Odense, and Vollsmose to get a common benefitial relationship
- How can we make the schools attractive
- How can we get the citizens to fell ownership and take initiative

The posters were done in a collaboration between me and Leo Scherfig (The Legalizer) and the 80 participants in the two day VollsmoseCamp, September 2007.

The poster are now being printed and will be posted around Odense.

Extreme nature

The way the environment will change over the next 100 years is pretty extreme. That Al Gore can win a Nobel Peaceprize, is amazing, or extreme....since he and Clinton weren't to ambitios about the Kyoto agreement.
Here is an illustration with "The Skeptical Environmentalst" Bjørn Lomborg on his way to take a swim in a flooded Denmark.
This is for the column on the back of the internal newsletter in the ministry og environmental affair. The text will be placed on the sky next to the palmtrees.

Please leave your comments.

-Erik

camel

Arabian fairytale

I just finished thes illustrations for a fairytale written by Rune T. Kidde.
It's about a grumpy wizard and his lame camel on their way to help out the emperor. On their way they encounter a genie, who works as a servant for a crime lord.
Its done in inkwash and photoshop.

Illustration Friday: "Wedding"...falling in love is the first step

I don't know if it is stretching the theme a little too much....hmmm. These two spreads are about 'love'....Amor, how love gives you wings, about kissing and so on...for some reason the theme turned into a jungle scene with monkey-love, Tarzan, Jane and her brokenhearted ex-boyfriend..

I hope you like it
-Erik

twopage spread

This is just a tryout for the visual look of the childrensbook Im working on.
I am pretty sure the book is gonna end up looking very different from this.....but at least its a start, and I am pretty found of Tom the dog with his pink cellphone.

The text is written by Thomas Oldrup

Dog-design for bookcharacter

I am sketching on this childrensbook-pitch, where the maincharacter is a dog. The dog is called Tom (Tom Waits as a dog) and through the book he discovers a world of sound, and realizes that music can be found everywhere.

I myself has a shorthaired black Dachshound, but I went more after the RiesenSchnauzer furball-kinda dog...for this dog.

I am working on this bookproject, with author Thomas Oldrup and Composer/musician/fineartist Peter Max-Jakobsen.
Hopefully the book end up as a groundbreaking book-soundexperience, that will activate young readers to make some Noooooooiiiiiizeeee!

Illustration Friday: "Emergency"

I did this a while ago for a bicycle magazine.
Everybody who has been in this situation knows its an emergency

Illustration Friday: "Moon"

I did this illustration for a childrenbook a little while ago, but the image went well with this fridays theme, so I decided to post it here.

It show the young melodramitic rooster Paul (Pophans) singing in the night.....imagine a sensitive vulnerable Justin Timberlake kinda popsinger...as a rooster!

Here is a summary of the book:

The chicken run is going to find a new leading rooster. The old rooster is very ill and he asks the hens to choose between Pop-Paul or Tom. All the hens go all gooey when they hear Pop-Paul sing. But Tom can repair things and organize and that is also appreciated – especially by the older hens. But then one day the fox eats one of the hens and the two roosters realise that it is good to have different talents.

To see more images from the book visit: http://www.erikpetri.dk/for_children_gallery_03.html

-Erik