mah'dja b

Oslo sketchcrawl July 2011

2011-07-24T23:58:00.013+02:00

The 32nd world wide sketchcrawl turned out to be a very different day than I imagined. I joined Stella and Åshild in downtown Oslo where a large area was cordoned off and guarded by armed soldiers, a haunting sight in our relatively quiet city. I wasn't quite sure at the time whether it was appropriate to be down there sketching, but it turned out to feel right to leave home and the endless news reports on the television behind and join the crowds walking a slow circle around the devastated area.
Nothing makes sense and it sure isn't sinking in what actually happened, but I am glad I made it down to visit the site first hand.

Åshild, a piece of glass from the Glasmagasinet shop front I decided to keep and a delicious chai latte.

Looking down the street in front of the government building that was targeted.

Osl♥

The sketchcrawl thread with the full results including some photos of us.

Sketchcrawl January 2011

2011-01-23T23:39:00.008+01:00

Happy 30th world wide sketchcrawl!
We ditched the crawling lizards this time and went for the stuffed animals at Oslo's natural history museum. They make even better models! Well, the ones that don't looked too squashed that is.
Then we stopped by a café before heading to our usual place for dinner and a beer or two. I love winter but I can't wait to try drawing outdoors again. If the sun had come out we could have tried, but since it was gray and gloomy we stayed indoors.

Happy 2011!

2011-01-01T17:55:00.004+01:00

Illustration work pt. 2

2010-11-09T23:58:00.012+01:00

This summer I got to work on a sixth book in the Korsfarer (Crusaders) series by Steffen R. M. Sørum. This time it was a fact book based on the history of the Crusades. I went for a little different style with this book, since it stands alone from the series. The image above is the cover.

Samples from the original five books are in this post.

sketch + self-portrait

2010-11-09T23:45:00.003+01:00

Self-portrait done in poor lighting using one hand to hold a mirror and one to paint on the computer... Made for self-portrait day, 1. november.

I just realized a few days after the fact that my blog turned five years old in october. Time's been flying by.

Sketchcrawl October 2010

2010-10-17T23:20:00.013+02:00

The 29th world wide sketchcrawl had a great turnout in Oslo! I think at the most we were maybe 11 people? I lost count! We were super lucky with the weather too. Winter is just around the corner here but the sun came through for us and kept us warm.
We started our crawl in front of the castle at the foot of the statue of Karl Johan, looking down on Karl Johans street. We later made a brief stop in the reptile park again before finding us some food and drinks.
A fun time, but maybe not my finest sketching day -- please ignore the funny loon, it's actually a seagull :P

My sketches:

sketches, sketches

2010-10-11T16:50:00.017+02:00

A new group of sketches.
The 29th worldwide sketchcrawl is this saturday. Are you participating? ^_^

Sketchcrawl May 2010

2010-05-16T21:40:00.007+02:00

We were a small (but nice) group of four who met up to sketch and crawl this time. The rain kept us from crawling too much, but we visited a reptile park in Oslo where we sketched lots of fun critters crawling and slithering. Thankfully they keep fairly still while you draw. :)

sketches 2009

2009-12-07T21:49:00.010+01:00

A selection of sketches from this year, mostly from storedyret's sketch of the day forum. Generally these took around 1-2 hours to make.

Illustration work

2009-12-06T22:31:00.014+01:00

I got the wonderful opportunity last year to illustrate a series of Norwegian children's books called 'Korsfarerne' (The Crusaders) written by Steffen Sørum. This fall, a year and a half later, the fifth and last book was in stores. These books are my first venture into illustration and it was a big learning experience for me.
The story is about Stefan, a young Frankish boy whose family travels to the Holy Land during the second crusade. Stefan becomes separated from his family through a series of incidents, and struggles to survive conflicts and treachery to relocate them. The story is connected to real historical events and gives the reader a perspective from both sides of the war.

The covers:

Some of the illustrations:

sketchcrawling in Tokyo

2009-11-30T22:57:00.009+01:00

looong time since I've updated this blog, and I do have some things to update with, but for now here are my blurry sketches from the sketchcrawl Olve and I participated in during our trip to Japan this November. We met some very lovely people and had a great time!

edit-- I just realized the post below this one was written right after our first trip to Japan spring 2008. So it has been a long time since I've updated. Olve is busy making a new blog for our latest trip, for those who want to see pictures :) I'll post a link when it's ready.

long time...

2008-04-24T23:57:00.005+02:00

I've just recently spent two wonderful weeks in Japan with my boyfriend Olve, and he's working hard to make a blog about it:
olve & maja in japan

Otherwise not much news from me, but I've gotten myself a new laptop yay! Finally a computer of my own I can draw and animate on. So here's a frivolous drawing in celebration. Maybe this will lead to some new updates here.

yellow

2007-09-06T23:32:00.000+02:00

something fast

another year older...

2006-11-15T09:29:00.000+01:00

random post

2006-09-26T18:31:00.000+02:00

please excuse my silence. these days my drawings are being made for a computer game company, where I'm cleverly (or not so cleverly) disguising myself as a concept artist. It's great!

I have some links to share though, new friends/msn friends/long-lost friends making blogs and websites. :) olve | melle | atle | glenn

I was never intending on blogging about music, but I just bought death cab for cutie's cd Plans, and it's beautiful enough to break your heart. Listen to 'what sarah said'. I just love this cd.

next up...

2006-08-21T13:20:00.000+02:00

no new sketches to post right now, as I've been LAZY this summer...
school is finished and I have big news, as in I've actually fooled a company into giving me work (MWAH HAH HAH). I will write more once I start and know more. This is a big change for me and I'm very very excited. :D

randomness and my updated portfolio page

2006-06-19T02:33:00.000+02:00

as long as you are here, please check out my new and improved portfolio page: [link]. There's not much new art there that you can't see here already, but things are at least a little more organized. Still working on some sections, but there shouldn't be any broken links (I hope) :D

not completely slacking off...

2006-06-11T03:56:00.000+02:00

some of these will be updated as I get around to working on them

photoshop coloring

2006-04-23T00:20:00.000+02:00

hippie chick

2006-04-21T00:00:00.000+02:00

A sketch I made last year that I finally 'finished' coloring today, although I think I could tweek this forever...

And check out this warning I got trying to retrieve the image file from my unhappy external hard disk :-D

macaw

2006-04-19T22:06:00.000+02:00

Made a design for my friend Kari's business card, fun to get a different type of project :-)

girl with hat

2006-04-07T13:54:00.000+02:00

messy coloring of a sketch... maybe I'll redo this one

slacker girl

2006-03-30T23:21:00.000+02:00

Thanks Tonie, I was running out of titles for my posts :-P

something for tonie... :D

2006-03-13T00:12:00.000+01:00

Been meaning to draw a lemur for you for forever, did this quick paint-sketch tonight... The lemur was pretty much drawn from my head, while the color/lighting was borrowed from a photo...
I'd love to do a more graphic/stylized lemur as well... They're so cool!

Wanna see a lemur move? Here's a great page: video.wildmadagascar.org

photoshop sketch

2006-03-11T23:13:00.000+01:00

done for storedyret's sketch forum...

a second drawing done tonight in photoshop

edit--ok, so I realize today that this picture is a lot more problematic than I thought yesterday--typical. :-)
But blogger won't let me reload pics, and anyways I doubt I'll go back and rework it, so I'll just leave it here for now...

hey there mateys

2006-03-09T23:36:00.000+01:00

woowoo... messing more with photoshop...
mess mess... :P

bubblegum & mermaids

2006-03-02T21:56:00.000+01:00

sketch dump II

2006-02-28T15:25:00.000+01:00

odds and ends from my notebooks last spring

2006-02-27T18:29:00.000+01:00

a horse from my head

green bear

2006-02-20T21:06:00.000+01:00

more photoshop play

girl smoking

2006-02-20T19:35:00.000+01:00

gah! photoshop crash...
here's what i saved with screen capture. this was supposed to be a quick one anyway...

[robert valley]
was browsing through this talented illustrator's work when suddenly my character started smoking... bad influence!

koz og klemz

2006-02-18T18:09:00.000+01:00

belated valentine's day post... ;-)

awe...

2006-02-12T00:53:00.000+01:00

too... much... cuteness... *gasp*

cute overload
the daily kitten
cats in sinks
kitten war
the infinite cat project
a toilet trained cat

red katt II

2006-02-07T00:02:00.000+01:00

color sketch of an idea

edit 13.feb --made a second version for a card

poo like flowers

2006-01-13T19:54:00.000+01:00

happy new year!

2006-01-10T22:50:00.000+01:00

I don't particularily like clowns, but this guy popped up in my sketchbook, and I couldn't resist trying to color him... yay, adventures in photoshop!

a red katt

2005-12-25T23:37:00.000+01:00

for my cousin's birthday card...
Hope everyone is having a nice holiday!

sketch dump

2005-12-19T21:00:00.000+01:00

...because I can...

2005-12-18T00:31:00.000+01:00

Messing around with some sketches in photoshop...

comic book happiness

2005-12-13T23:01:00.000+01:00

Suddenly I'm full up on comic books to read...
It started in France, where I bought Où le regard ne porte pas in one volume (gorgeous!), and three books by Enrique Fernandez, his Les Libérateurs and the first two volumes of Le Magicien d'Oz (all gorgeous as well!).
Then yesterday I found one of Karine Haaland's books and two of Jason's books on sale for nice prices.
And today I suddenly had a mysterious package waiting for me at the post office! It was my brother, who had sent me both volumes of Flight for my birthday!!!
...so many beautiful things...

Svanhild again and e-magiciens

2005-12-12T01:54:00.000+01:00

...cuz I haven't been happy with my sketches lately. *sigh* Drew this one today and thought the result was ok.

Sooner or later I'll try to post some of my drawings for our 10 seconds of the animation chaînée for e-magiciens, I'll see what I find. The whole film can be found on their website--here is a little visual guide to find it:

You need the newest Quicktime to view it. It's also on the flash page that opens when you click on the picture next to it (Webtv 2005) but that page hasn't been working well for me.
Our 10 seconds alone is here at the moment if you want to see it.
*warning* some nudity :-P

...a few screenshots...

something different

2005-11-12T16:41:00.000+01:00

Made this as a gift for my nephew when he turned one... That is, I started it back then, now he's four and it's finally colored, but not framed or given yet. It's the Norse god Odin's animals--his eight-legged horse Sleipnir, the wolves Geri & Freki, ravens Hugin & Munin-- and that's Yggrasil the world tree in the corner. Nice pagen gift from one of his godparents... heh heh.
This is something different coming from me, and probably why it took me so long. And I'm not satisfied with how the coloring turned out, but it'll do.

dog and his girl

2005-11-10T23:56:00.000+01:00

more random sketches

2005-11-07T01:58:00.000+01:00

again, some drawings collected from my sketchbook this fall...

portrait practise

2005-11-03T19:43:00.000+01:00

the many faces of Svanhild...
For drawing practise I've been trying to draw my friend five times a week, it hasn't always been that often, but I'm done a number of these by now. And it's just as hard every time!

links!

2005-10-30T00:38:00.000+02:00

go where the real talent is:

Man Arenas | blog
Matt and Tom Rhodes
Claire Wendling
Harald Siepermann
Hans Bacher
Enrique Fernandez
Stéphane Tartelin (boz)
Uwe Heidschoetter
Tadahiro Uesugi
Où le regard ne porte pas...
Jen Wang
Kevin Dalton
Reagan Lodge
Tim McBurnie (rinaldo) more here
Rodolphe Guenoden
Flight Comics
Enrico Casarosa
Justin Cherry (nivbed)
Arthur de Pins
Guillaume Decaux
Matteo De Longis
Aysha Shehim

...some of my favorite sites, I'll try to keep adding to this list as I go

kons doing what he does best...

2005-10-27T21:28:00.000+02:00

...besides eating of course. Some drawings of my parents' cat done this summer.

Ctrl + Z

2005-10-24T17:19:00.000+02:00

an experiment gone out of control... Still looking for the undo button on my watercolor set. Or my pen for that matter.

...close-up of yet another girl walking!

silly animals

2005-10-23T23:22:00.000+02:00

some sketches gathered from my sketchbooks...

...playing some more with watercolor

something new

2005-10-17T15:33:00.000+02:00

Trying to work a little more with colors these days, and light and shadow. Need to practice! Hmmm... another girl looking lonely...

...and a little more color added, not sure that it's an improvement. My friend Svanhild was smart enough to tell me to stop painting and scan before things got out of control.

something old

2005-10-17T15:27:00.000+02:00

Starting with something old... Made this spring from a sketch, colored in photoshop. I was hoping to do more of these, but somehow haven't gotten around to it. Colors are scary...

This is for Yaprak...

2005-10-17T14:56:00.000+02:00

...she made me do this. My plans for this blog involve mostly posting sketches from time to time, for whoever may be interested. For those who might not know, I'm an animation student studying in Norway, this year I'm supposed to be making my exam film, it's a slo-o-o-o-w process.
Anyhow, welcome all!