Snapdragons in the Sun

Snapdragons - full spread (In Grandma's Garden)

My studio is a painting factory these days.  It's been a real struggle to stay indoors in the lovely weather we've been having in Niceland lately.  But I've been enjoying the projects I'm working on so much that I've managed to ignore the sun outside, up to a point!  I have to admit I was almost a little relieved to hear there is a rain in the forecast!

Above and below is a sneak peek of two illustrations from In Grandma's Garden.

Babies Breath - detail (In Grandma's Garden)

We'll, I'd be lying if I said I hadn't been enjoying the weather a bit..

Happy June!

A Brand New Illustrated TV-Ad

I have been lucky enough to be doing all kinds of illustration work lately.  I love diving in new areas of the business and got such an opportunity recently when I worked on a TV ad for an Icelandic bank, Arion Banki.  

I had a blast working on the project with the great creative team at Íslenska Auglýsingastofan (The Icelandic Advertising Agency). 

 I'm very happy with the outcome and just love seeing my 2D watercolor drawings come to life in an animation. I could get used to it...

Here you can see the ad and some images from it.  Hope you like it!

Some News...

Yesterday I bought myself some flowers and Champagne (ok, cheap sparkling wine).  When I came home I chilled the wine, put the flowers in water and sat down to sign a four (yes, four as in 4!) book deal with Sterling Publishing Inc. in NY!  YAYYY!!! I'll be illustrating classic fairy tales in a series they are publishing and the first one will be Thumbelina!  I can't tell you how happy  and grateful I am to be busy at doing what I love, it's a privilege really.

Buttercups - Thumbnail

In other news, I've been working on a book for a publisher in Texas.  It's a lovely story in rhyme called "In Grandma's Garden" by Ms. Brenda Cockerell.  It takes you on a travel around a garden where the plants are often shown as characters or the objects they are named after.  It is scheduled to be published as a book and an e-book later this year.  All the proceeds will go to breast cancer research and to a fund in the name of  Ms. Holly Horton, which sadly died from cancer, in 2009, but she was a dear friend of Ms. Cockerell.  It's truly a beautiful story with a beautiful purpose and I'm happy to be a part of it.  I'll post more thumbnails and illustrations from it in the next few weeks.

 

Foxgloves - Thumbnail

Inspiration

This week I post no art, ...well that is, no art work created by me, ...well, when I think about it, perhaps it is the greatest piece of art that I have made and will ever make (I love saying that cheesy joke). MY KIDS!

So I thought I'd share a bit of my inspiration, which is one of the most important things when creating art. These loud little creatures that make me as happy as they can make me crazy (more often happy than crazy).

This is Lára, she is three. She found the cookie jar the other day with the last cookie from Chrismas. I'm not sure it tasted good, but it made her happy. And she learned how to cross her eyes (hope it's not because of that old cookie).

And this is Dagur (and the back of my head). He is ten years old. I just noticed he's catching up on me, not that I'm that tall, but in a few years I'll be looking up at him when I either yell at him or hug him (more hugging than yelling of course). Ghees, time flies...

We spent Easter in the country in my parents summer house, and it was so relaxing and cozy after the crazy busy month of March .

We played tourists and watched Geysir's little brother Strokkur erupt a few times and we watched Spring slowly (really slooowly) take over Winter.

I took my paint and brushes with me and Lára and I painted inside while the boys were outside playing on their bikes in the dirt.

Lára is my mini-me...

...and Dagur is Eggert's mini-him.

Dagur played 'Angry Birds' after the dirt-bike adventure.

On Easter Sunday we hide chocolate eggs around the house. The kids have to follow clues to find their eggs. It's helpful to have a big brother to read the clues (and give hints) when trying to find one's egg.

And no, we didn't eat all that chocolate in one day, it was just for breakfast.

And I just had to post this one of Lára with her self-made pose after that healthy breakfast!

Happy Spring!

Phobophobia & Besla

One year ago, it had been 8 months since I moved back home. I had a studio and was busy with work, but felt a little lonely in my own little illustration world. I suddenly got the feeling I needed to find the rest of the herd, the illustrator herd. I went to a few Design March events that year and loved it, got very inspired, but again I felt very isolated in my profession. I know it is a lonely job being an artist, but I decided at the moment when I walked out of an event full of architects, product -, clothing- and graphic-designers etc. that I'd find the few souls out there called illustrators. And I decided that next Design March we would have an illustration exhibition.

And I'll be damned, it happened!!! One year later these few souls, (33 to be exact) from around the country and the world got together and created a show called Phobophobia. We now usually meet for coffee once a month and on one of those meet-ups we decided how we'd have the show, chose the structure and the theme. Every illustrator chose a phobia to illustrate in a poster. You can read more about the show here. It worked out so great, we got great publicity and so many people came to the opening, even the president!

Pedeophobia - Linda Olafsdottir

My Phobia was Pedeophobia (I know, the name of it sounds horrible!) but it is the fear of dolls. It shows a poor old man that tries to survive the night in his granddaughters room. The inspiration for it came from when I lived in San Francisco where my parents and mother in law had to spend the nights surrounded with toy cars and posters of Ferrari's when they came to visit (you better not have the fear of cars when sleeping in my son's room)!


You can see more works from the show here.

I also participated in a show called Flétta or Braid. It showed works from a collaboration between designers in different fields. I worked with my friend and studio mate, the clothing- and textile designer Brynja Emils. She designed clothes for babies and I made the pattern. I can't tell you how exciting it was for us to get the prototypes from India where the clothes are made, and to see and feel the real product. They are oh so soft and the colors are so pretty. I can't wait to see where Brynja takes her new line of children's clothing, it's off to a great start I think :)

Besla - Models Iðunn and Marínó

SCBWI & NYC

View from my studio this morning

It's been way to long since my last blog post. I've been crazy busy since I came home from NY and have been working on illustrating for books, educational material for the web and for a TV ad. So, not busy bad but busy good! Also I'm preparing for Design March which takes place in Reykjavík March 22nd - 25th. I'm participating on two shows and am really looking forward to it. I'll post some more info on that soon.

I've been meaning to blog about my SCBWI conference experience, and finally now I get to it. What fun it was! There were eleven hundred conference guests from 19 countries attending, one of them was from Iceland. And somehow, most everyone at the conference knew who that Icelandic lady was (maybe it's because she couldn't help but yelling "yeah, woohoo" when the first speaker read the list of countries at the conference, or maybe it was the orange dress, or a bit of both...)

I signed up for the illustrators intensive, which focused on marketing for illustrators. It started of with the illustrator speakers John Rocco (who had just won the Caldecott for his beautiful book Blackout), the very funny Dan Santat, my new idol Sophie Blackall and the brilliant Dan Yaccarino. All have had great success and have such beautiful work. Later in the day we had a panel discussions from publishing experts. All so helpful, encouraging, intimidating and motivating at the same time.

What stood out for me after that day regarding marketing myself is basically: Have a presence! You have be present out there, and with the world constantly getting smaller with all the social media, you have to take advantage of that. Use it to promote yourself and show people who you are. It doesn't matter where you live, everyone has the opportunity to show themselves to the world. And how happy that makes me to hear that I can live happily on this windy little island in the North Atlantic and pretend that I'm working in NY (see image at top, I have on "skyscraper to look at!)

So what's so important to have is:
- A Website
- A Blog
- Be active and give people the reason to come back to your website
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Flickr
- Participate in blogs such as Illustration Friday
- Get in contact with your local bookstores and libraries
- Connect with your peers
- Be sincere and focused
- Be an advocate for your work!

Panel Discussion lead by Art Director Laurent Linn (Simon & Shuster). The Bookmakers Dozen Illustrators; Selina Alko, Sophie Blackall, Peter Brown, Brian Floca, David Gordon, Brett Helquist, Aileen Leijten, John Bemelmans Marciano, Sean Qualls, John Rocco, Sergio Ruzzier and Dan Yaccarino.

What I found a lot of speakers talked about was that the local bookstores are growing. Which is just wonderful news I think! And it's so important for all of us to support them. They also talked about that the book lists coming down, but that hardcovers are now selling better than paperbacks. Last year was a good year in children's books, and the e-book is just an addition to the market. People are generally not worried that it'll in any way change the tradition of reaching for a book on the shelve to read for your child. Phew! I think the e-book market is so exciting, it's new to everyone, so now is the chance to jump in and learn all about it.

The co-founder of SCBWI, Lin Oliver gave such a wonderful speech with the best words of advice:

- Your content should touch the heart, the soul and the funny bone of your audience.
- Stick with your network, keep going, get feedback, reach for advice.
- READ!
- Stay strong
- Have fun!

I also attended workshops for e-books and apps with Ruben Pfeffer, on 'How To Make Your Picture Book Stand Out' with Martha Rago (Harpercollins) and a very helpful and spot on presentation from Cathy Goldsmith (Random House) on how to work with publishers. She has such a great career and was the last art director to work with Dr. Seuss (how cool is that?!).

This blog post would be soooo long (if it's not long enough already) if I wrote about everything I learned and was inspired by, but what stays with me is: Work hard, believe in yourself, connect with peers, accept that rejections always suck! And I so strongly believe if you really, really want something and if your work hard enough to get it, it'll happen, for sure! It's a struggle and putting yourself out there is hard. You can get a hundred compliments and one bad critique makes you forget all the good feedback. It's a roller coaster and I'm so thankful to be on it :)

Left; Me in heaven in Barnes & Noble's Children's Book Section (with a double Cappuccino) / Right; Our good friend the artist Curver and my husband/lover Eggert.

That NY trip was just everything I'd hoped for. An inspiring conference, encouraging business meetings with publishers, and an excuse from the daily routine, no laundry and cooking, just hanging out with my lover :)

....aaaand I have some really exciting news to share with you real soon, so stay tuned, I promise to blog more frequently!

Heading to NYC!

so, lets see....

• Portfolio - check!
• Business Cards - check!
• Postcards - check!
• Tear Sheets - check!
• Dummy - check!
• Airline ticket - check!
• Hotel - check!
• Meetings - check!
• Babysitters - check! (or should I double check?)
  
• Laundry - ......whatever...
• Getting to the airport with all that snow pouring down - crossing my fingers!

Yup, I'm heading to NY tomorrow for the SCBWI Winter Conference. I've spent so much time preparing for it, I can hardly believe I'm leaving tomorrow already! And I'm oh so excited for it :) My lovely husband is joining me and we'll spend a whole week in the city.

Will post a blog from the conference experience as soon as I get home, so stay tuned!

Me - tomorrow - without the backpack though...