How did you become an illustrator?

I’ve always drawn. I grew up in a creative family where both my parents drew, influenced by fairytales and fashion illustration. So I drew, painted, inked, and played around for hours and hours with technique, drew fairytale creatures, drew fashion poses, drew from Disney movies, drew from comics, messed around with paint, and generally had a splendid time teaching myself illustration styles.

I had access to art equipment. Good art equipment. Not necessarily expensive tools, but good quality ones. Mechanical pencils and good HB, 2B and 3B pencils, my Alf Bjercke brushes, and Rembrandt, Windsor & Newton, and Schminke watercolour pans. To master and then improvise (in this case watercolours) I needed good brushes and artist quality paints. Everything else was just annoyingly in my way to make what I wanted. A detailed post on art equipment here.

I was encouraged to apply for an education in art. It does help when carving out a career path, that the environment you’re in is not only supportive of your interests, but love the idea of you becoming an artist. I think my squad knew I’d be unhappy if not.

I went to art schools. But, that doesn’t necessarily reflect my full skill set. I learnt a lot from just drawing, from my parents, from artist friends and colleagues, from general nerdness, from just doing the job – as well as courses in school with hands on printmaking, graphic design, typography and visual communication.

How did you find your own unique style? I developed my inked art style before I started studying, from just drawing and drawing and drawing (and loving comics), and when meeting other students with other style influences I was nudged in a more colorful direction.

When did you decide to become an artist? I never stopped. The creative outlet we rediscover as adults is just playing around and finding out, as most kids do. And that’s the great secret. Playfulness becoming creativity. I’ve met people that marvel at my schools and certificates thinking they’re the artist hatching ground, and during the same conversation waft away the idea of kids playing, exploring and being creative as something to keep them occupied while grown ups hatch into authors, designers, and musicians at their various schools. Beats me why they don’t see the connection. The more fun questions about schools or courses is to mull over “Where did you develop as an artist”, “What school poked your creative embers best?”, “How did you fall in love with this and this technique?”

I think that my schools were catalysts for artistic development and where I could fully immerse myself in nerdy machinery like Gutenberg presses, etching techniques and coding, not a place where I first learnt to be an artist. Developed yes, but not the place I started. So I never really went for it, or took the leap, just sauntered from a child, then teen, then adult, stumbled, snowballed, frog jumped, ran, crawled along the squiggly path to working as a full time illustrator and owning a galley. My official starting out date is June 2006 when I started my company and sent an invoice, and bought www.gunvor.no.

Do you have a favourite project? What is the most fun job you’ve had or something that you’re proud of? I have favourite ways of working more than a favourite project. I enjoy taking on clients that have the same values as me, and wouldn’t work with companies where our values collide. So with values in mind the most enjoyable to work has been “Verden under vann” by Pia Ve Dahlen (save the oceans, peeps!), Naturskole with Fløyen (save the forests, peeps!), and the books about grief with Frisk Forlag (save our galloping stressed humanity, peeps!). Projects that have my interests hooked are doing labels for Hardangerbonden, because she has built her own company producing local cider, and the music book with Kode because it’s a project showcasing women composers and how creating art and music is connected.

The giant figures now mounted at mount Fløyen might be the most fun outcome of a job (and I got to work outside and sleep in a treehouse), along with Monster Jazz and Festspillene where I drew live on stage to music. For the labels for 7Fjell I could let loose and draw unhinged monsters – and 10 year old me is ridiculously proud hat I have designed the label for a Christmas soda. But my baby is the children’s anthology on Skald Forlag, where it all started.

How do you get illustration work? I’m so lucky that me and my clients seem to gravitate towards each other, like when I was obsessing over the lack of trail maps for mount Fløyen and sketched a map on one of my hikes, and the same day they contacted me asking if I did map designs. Guess it was something in the air that day. I have worked as an illustrator for almost 20 years (time to celebrate in 2026) and most of my work has been snowballing from one project to the next because someone saw something they liked in a previous project. The first proper jobs I did I got because I had an exhibition at a cafe, and an editor from Bergens Tidende had her lunch there, and later when working for them with editorial illustration, an editor at Skald saw my illustration in the newspaper and wanted me to make children’s books.

But what about money? Can you make a living doing this? Yes. I run my own gallery at Bryggen in Bergen, Norway, run my web shop, and take commissions for book illustration and other tasks where illustration is needed. Money and business management was something I learnt along the way – and also took an interest in. Courses in economics and a lot of googling – and politely skirting unsolicited advice from people that don’t have a clue about working as an artist.

The work hours vs payment equation is something I’ve tried to calculate but have given up. I have set prices for originals by size to try and reflect the time used, but, as many creatives, we work more hours than we are paid for. Sketches, emails, paperwork, meetings, project proposals, ideation, contracts for onward use of illustrations, talks, snags and twists and new ideas along the way, occasional celebratory cake and champagne (if we remember it and are not too exhausted after a deadline), projects changing form, and so on and so forth.

Grafill, Forfatterforeningen and Tegnerforbundet are good resources for pricing and contracts.

Did you work for free to showcase your work in the beginning? No. I did participate in exhibitions which cost more money setting up than I earned though, but never took on unpaid jobs. I always write a polite but stern notice to companies that have money but ask you to work for exposure. Working for exposure does not pay the bills, and it undermines the whole creative field. Unless (there is always an unless) it’s for a company or cause you really want to help, or you go old fashioned and trade services. I did that.

How are your work hours? Do you have a daily routine? Ah, yes, we come to it. No. Yes. I don’t know. For commissioned work I am structured and disciplined to meet deadlines. Calculate how much time I have for each illustration and bend my calendar around it. I’m guessing I ‘m like most people in my field, that our commissioned work often has an already tight deadline from the client and we make the best of it.

For my self initiated work I have a more playful and immediate approach, often spurred on by experiences, music, snippets of conversations, so these things are of a more eruptive nature and I will jump to it and nerd out for hours. If interested in math, you can see that these two ways of working don’t add up. My own art is mostly on hold when working on commissioned work, where I also create and illustrate, but in a more brainy way with concepts and logistics and deadlines.

On a daily basis I do have some fixed routines though. In the morning I drink decaf coffee or tea and let my mind wander around 7.00 – 7.30am (no news or social media), then 15 min-ish yoga, and have a six minute meditation for creativity that I listen to. That primes my brain for focusing. Then I work from my home office or office at Bryggen for 7-8 hours doing gallery stuff, prep and send sketches, do the actual illustrations, or update my web page and look at money stuff, try to remember to document drawing process for social media, or all the other invisible stuff for running a gallery and working with clients.

I have more effective hours when at my home office, and less if in my gallery at Bryggen, because there I am multitasking more and brain can only take so much pinging about. When working on commissions I use my home office more. Less distractions. And then there are the days and weeks where meetings and rigging and posting orders, proofreading prints and picking up wares fill the calendar; where I’m needed out and about.

I’ve done the meditation morning routine for aprx four years and I see it as part of my work day to not whirr around Duracell bunny style, or resent starting hard tasks, or waste time figuring out where to start. I still get caught up in the stress of being self employed, lots of unanswered messages and emails and tasks unchecked, but at least keeping the routines make it easier to focus and prioritize (and not forget my own art) when juggling different projects.

Would you choose differently if given the chance? No. I meet and work with so many splendid people and wouldn’t change my colourful (and sometimes stressful) workday for anything. Maybe the tight deadlines though, if I was to change something it would be that, and the negative comments about creatives just playing all day swimming in grants. I do wish for more playfulness in everyone’s workday, playfulness equals creativity equals solutions – and that we don’t take art (and everything) so seriously all the time.

Are you working on something now? And do you have a dream client? Yes, I’ve just finished illustrations for an album, and goodnight song book that will be in stores in November. (2025). The album was just released on Spotify (link to album here) and has some cute animated canvases for the songs. My main job was the illustrations for the songbook, and it went off to print this week. I guess as far as dream clients go, I’ve been really lucky to work with some truly inspiring people. But when the singer that commissioned this project is called Sissel Kyrkjebø and I get to work with Tonje Tornes from TNT/Bonnier – and it’s a book about falling asleep to beautiful songs, I guess that can be filed under dream project;)