Another year.

Sketch

Wednesday. A day after another. Kind of Quixotique. 

•  Hamnsjåare, balar, säckar, grips och kranar.
• När söndagsnöjet var att "gå i hamnen"
• Gothenburg harbour. Long time since. 

Picture

          And for now ... Friday. It has been a long journey. 
                    The horse is thirsty and so am I.

Selfportrait

It isn´t Friday. But almost. I leave for today

Sketches from real life.

I always wear a sketchbook in my pocket. 

A couple of pencils and a sharpener.

And of course my old Mont Blanc. 

 I gaze intensively at people 

and things around.

 I remember. 

Then ... a sketch is done.

On a tram home from city.

At the gym.

In  my garden.

Hard times ahead

Jazz

 

Jazz

Jazz

A theme I am working on.

On your marks ....

Birger Lundquist.

Teckningar: Birger Lundquist

Hur jag blev jag tecknare.

Jag lärde mig teckna genom att titta på Erik Wilhelms teckningar i Bohusläningen. Erik Wilhelm var Bohusläningens tecknare.  Han rökte pipa, bar borsalinohatt och gandhiskynke samt spelade biljard, var staden Uddevallas konstnär. Men framförallt var Erik Wilhelm tidningstecknare. Ovetandes var Erik Wilhelm en slags min mentor. Jag ritade av Eriks teckningar. Båtar, klippor, kajer och hav. Jag var "duktig på att rita."

 I skolan fick jag uppmuntran. Jag fick lov att rita med krita på svarta tavlan. En ynnest. Jag insåg att man kanske kunde försörja sig som tecknare. Jag bestämde mig för att resa till Amerika och teckna Kalle Anka serier för Walt Disney. Jag skrev brev till Walt, och anmälde min ankomst. Drömmen dog. Annat tog vid.

     Jag reste istället till Göteborg och började på Slöjdföreningens skola. Där fanns konstnär Rudolf Flinck, som undervisade i krokiteckning. Efter en genomgång av vad jag gjort under dagen, rekommenderade han mig att gå ned i skolans bibiliotek och be Louise plocka fram några böcker med illustrationer av Birger Lundquist. Så kom jag att lära känna alla tidningstecknares stora förebild: Birger Lundquist. 

     Birger Lundquist tecknade Dagens Nyheter, och blev en stilbildare för framtidens reportagetecknare. Så snart man satte pennan på papperet så dök tanken upp: hur skulle Birger Lundquist ha gjort? Hur skulle en Rembrandt ha gjort?Jag nämnde detta "problem" en gång för Björn Berg som efterträdde Birger Lundquist på DN.

 – Det tog mig många år innan jag kunde göra mig fri från Birger, erkände Björn. Hur skulle Birger ha gjort ekade i mitt huvud. Hos mig ekar frågan än.

     Jag visste vad jag ville bli: tidningstecknare, reportagetecknare! och jag började min träning. Teckna, teckna och åter teckna. Jag slet ut reservoarpennor, jag konsumerade tusch. Jag tecknade på fester, på krogen, i spårvagnen, framför TV. Ständigt var jag ritande. Lika envetet som Björn Borg slog bollar mot en garageport  lika envetet försökte jag lösa perspektiv, anatomi, ljus och skugga med min Mont Blanc. På papper. 

Det var inte alltid nöjsamt, men jag var "komplett fokuserad" och blev så småningom så kvalificerad att jag fick jobb på en dagstidning. 

     Och så, just där börjar en helt annan fas i tecknandet. Och den var inte mindre svår. Och den pågår än idag. 

     Idag publicerar Dagens Nyheter en artikel om Birger Lundquist. 

Så kunde en tidningssida se ut på femtiotalet. 

Stort!

Info graphics

A drawing like this? I have never done one before.

Well, that is not really true. I did a lot of "info graphics"

when I started to work for GP, the daily Gothenburg newspaper.

 There were submarines, bridges, buildings, riggs, robberies,

accidents that should be described minutely in pictures. And I had to 

trust my memory and fill in with fantasy.

"Of course you know what it looks like inside a

submarine, don´t you!" I had seen the inside of a submarine in 

a movie or two, thats all.(The Beach. Anthony Perkins?)  I looked

through books, yes the interior was ok, but where was the leak like? what 

was the condition like for the people down there?

"Some people screaming and running around, and Ulf don´t forget the water

Up to the knees. It must be dark down there? Put in som light too!"

And I made drawings. Water, tubes,

floating bodies, maps and gates,crying sailors, flickering lightsources.

  Fake it was. Imagination. I did many of those

"infographics" They were made on  paper and ink. And a lot of white gouache.

Alteration and alterations.

Time changes. You could not go on faking like that.You had to be quite correct.

The information should be informative, clear and precise.

That was a demand. Of course!

And so a very skillfull artist was hired. And he did a very good job.

 I had done my last drawing on those subjects. 

Untill this week. Now, no paper, just Illustrator. Being interested in 

boats and the sea I found this task interesting. 

It is about a research vehicle, to be built for the Gothenburg University. 

And I have learned to like Illustrator.

I prefer Painter though.

 

111 Lighthouses.

OK.This is not a book about Lighthouses.

Not a book for navigation, nor an encyclopedia.

.... it is kind of an ArtBook. OK!

As I have said earlier: during my lifetime 

and the years I spent as a newspaper artist 

I came to visit more than 300 lighthouses.

I made a drawing, it was published, and

then I archived it in a cupboard.

Most of the drawings are gone. Into oblivion,

given away or sold. (My wife went aground

just outside that rock! Her birthday is

on Sunday!) 

 Many times I have been asked: Will you 

ever publish those lighthouses? Those drawings.

I would like to have them collected. 

When the100th lighthouse was published 

 poster was printed And when the 200th lighthouse

was published another one. And before

that a book, text by Gert Malmberg. 

All those items since long sold out. 

This spring I have been looking through

what remains of the collection. I havegone through, 

I have remade and I have scanned a few. 

I have sorted the material out and so 

I have collected 111 lighthouses in a book. 

(111 LIGHTHOUSES DRAWINGS BY ULF SVENINGSON

No publisher was interested. But there is Blurb. 

And there it is just now. For sale. And in my backyard I got a few. 

Enough of Lighthouses now?

At least for a while. 

 

Well, here is a link to Blurb. 

If you are interested.

 

http://blur.by/1vLL08P

Cordouan

 Idag /16 mars 2014/publicerar Svenska Dagbladet 

en understreckare om  fyren Cordouan,

belägen på frankrikes västra kust, och

 Augustine Fresnel, fresnel-linsens uppfinnare. 

Författare är Per Högselius,vetenskapshistoriker vid KTH

Cordouan är en fantastiskt vacker fyr.

och råkar vara  den sista fyr jag besökte som 

utsänd av Göteborgs-Posten. Jag hade

då tillsammans med Gert Malmberg besökt,

fotograferat och tecknat drygt 300 fyrar. 

En värdig avslutning alltså.

Cordouan.

Today there is an article in

 Svenska Dagbladet, a Swedish daily paper

It is about the famous lighthouse Cordouan, 

situated on the western coast of France.

The article is written by the swedish 

science-historian Per Högselius. 

It is a very beautiful piece of lighthouse.

Cordouan happened to be the last of the lighthouses

I visited being a  reporter for the Gothenburg-Post. 

I had then visited, sketched and photographed together with

Gert Malmberg more than three hundred lighthouses,

Cordouan was my Grand Final.

Fyrvaktaren på Cordouan. Tyvärr minns jag inte hans namn.

 

Before & after

Film

Gothenburg International Film Festival is over. 

See you next year.

http://blur.by/1fbmMwQ

 

This might be true a couple of years from now.

A sketch I did many years ago, when this

was really science fiction.

Welcome to the space.

Mars next.

Fridaytomorrow

 

New York / Illustrator

This is my first illustration I made in Illustrator. I was eager learning computerdrawing. Where i worked there was a young lady, who had the knowledge. She knew how to work in Photoshop. I was amazed of what the little machine could do. She showed me!

I got a computer, a Mac, and I bought all of those very thick manuals, there were. I started in Painter then Photoshop ...It took a long time before I opened Illustrator. I thought it so far away from what I was used to work with: Pen and paper.

One day I got an assignment I found suitable for Illustrator. I started to read the manuals, every evening at bedtime, rushed to the computer, did what the manual told me to do, alas it worked.

The illustration above was made to an article about the work at UN. Many straight lines, many shades, many layers, very much trial and error. This year I think I will try the canvas and oil. On an easel.