a peek at monika forsberg’s walkyland

These days I’ve been loving Monika Forsberg’s wonderfully quirky art. I’m taken with her vivid colors and interesting compositions, as well as how she blends humor and fantasy with reality.

A Monika Forsberg design is bold, eye-catching and very distinctive.

Though she now lives and works in North London, she’s originally from Sweden. She grew up in a northern seaside town where it was almost always winter.

In her early 20’s, Monika moved to London to study art and animation at the Royal College of Art. Her boyfriend is also an artist and they are the parents of two boys. After the birth of her second son, she decided to pursue illustration.

Her work appears in books and magazines, on fabric and paper products (gift wrap, greeting cards, planners, stationery), and a variety of children’s products (games, puzzles, backpacks, baby clothes).

Her client list includes Anthropologie, eeBoo, NY Review, United Nations, Gorman Clothing, Oopsie Daisy and Unicef.

Monika begins her pieces with pen, paint, and paper — drawing by hand while sitting on her bed listening to audio books or radio documentaries. When she’s compiled a stack of drawings, she moves to her computer, where she scans them in before assembling the best ones in Photoshop.

She prefers to use technology as little as possible — mostly for arranging, rearranging, and enhancing. Her process is largely spontaneous and instinctive, allowing room for playfulness along the way.

Last year, Monika published Crayon: An Artist’s Colorful Guide to Drawing on the Go! (Walter Foster, 2017), part of the Anywhere, Anytime series.

Monika’s website, and conceptually, her “brand” is called “Walkyland.” In an interview with Lisa Congdon, Monika describes where the name came from and what it means:

One day my eldest son and I came up with Walkyland as a joke about something and I realized it was a great name that captured what I wanted to do, be and live. The only problem was that I had no work that fit my idea of Walkyland (a colorful green floral jungle full of strange creatures and happiness). I had no idea how to go about it as at that time I only did realistic black ink line drawings of people at the lido (outdoor swimming pool) here in London. I had no idea how to use colors or how to use my imagination. When I was a child we always drew with marker pens, and so when tackling the task of learning how to use colors I used that as a starting point because it was something I felt comfortable with.

Enjoy Monika’s video, “Mummy Needs Gin,” based on the tweets of an anonymous single mother:

Learn more about Monika’s work at her website and Instagram. Check out her cute eeBoo products here. You can also purchase some of her greeting cards at Lagom, and gift wrap at Impression Originale.