Creative sleepover in “Konglen” at Mt Fløyen

I’ve done several different illustration tasks for Fløyen over the last few years, and the drawings in the pipeline now are for their “Nature School” plans for 2025. I’m decorating some walls with drawings, and I’m really looking forward to be able to share it. Until then; here are some pictures of the process.

At Fløyen they’ve build a beautiful tree hut suspended between the trees, and since I’m spending so much time up there drawing for this project, I asked if I could stay one night in the treehut and work.

I had my drawing list to work from, but hoped that the stay would give the illustrations some extra spark.

And it did. Getting complete silence and alone time is precious, and I reveled at how silent the place was at night. There was no wind, weather was cold and clear, and the goats living close to the treehut seemed to enjoy their alone time too.

The drawings are going to printed quite large, and I had tested the linework vs scale earlier, and knew approximately which size to draw them out in. This one is only 3 cm tall, and will be aprx 30 cm tall when printed. This way we’ll get all the fun watercolour play and wonky linework nice and visible.

I did some fleshing out of the characters while up there (swaying away in the trees) which led to some of the illustrations to be drawn out again. But they came out more alive because of it.

The stream running underneath my contemporary home.

My attempts at photographing the space were unsuccessful to say it mildly, so here is a sketch I made of it instead. Konglen doesn’t feel cramped, the ceiling is high and vaulted, and the window lets in plenty of light.

There is a bookshelf with games and books, wool slippers to wear inside, and it was heated! I didn’t know, so I had packed enough to be comfortable on the North pole.

The table/mid-mattress solution was clever, and when the mattress/table was down the bed was a cozy plain of wool and pillows. Sleeping arrangements are spacious for one person, perfect for two, or one adult with two kids. The thing that makes it more of a challenge to use with more than two people is not the space, but the swaying. The treehouse is suspended in wires from the surrounding trees, so it’s a bit like moving around in a boat reacting to waves.

The rope ladder was attached to the top steps that were built in the hut itself, so when hauling my rucksack up I wasn’t dangling away underneath it for the last few steps. That made it alot easier to push open the trap door.

I’m staying in a tree!

The view from my sofa bed. The best thing about the swaying is that you’re being lulled to sleep.

It’s the most inspiring and wonderful thing I’ve done for myself and my creativity in a long time. Getting this many hours in a row to just concentrate and get in the flow was magical.

I can recommend doing something like this if you want to spend a night in the forest but can’t spend a full weekend away. I don’t have a car, so being able to just take the funicular after work and not carry a tent was a treat. And climb down and go to work the next day. A micro vacation in the middle of the week.

Morning light.

The illustrations for this project are finished, but I’m waiting to publish the final result until they are in place in Mt Fløyen in the very near future.

Btw, I had sea legs for two days;)