After Michiel Walrave and Mara Piccione , Jansen Jord is the 3rd dutch artist to join the site. Check out his posters for Karma to Burn and the Melvins, and you will probably understand how interesting is his work. Even if he is still quite a new comer in the poster world, I will definitly follow that moustache guy ;)
Right now i'm enjoying the sweet tunes of Fatso Jetson and the instrumental heaviness of the new album of Tank 86.
Can you tell us more about yourself, who are you, where are you from, what do you do?
My name is Jord Jansen and i am an illustrator or painter or grafic whatever and i sing in a band called Bandito. I come from the Netherlands and most of the time i am listening to music and draw at the same time. In the weekends i play with my band and drink with my mates. Furthermore i organise shows and other stupid things like rock city bowling with some other friends.
When did you start drawing?
I have no idea, i think it started when i was too little to comprehend the world. I still got a lot of drawings of people with stick hands and other visions of a little child. I don't think i can remember a time when i wasn't drawing. But it wasn't until i was 15 or 16 i guess when i thought that maybe this was the thing i wanted to do for the rest of my life. Before that i just wanted to be the guy controlling the wrecking ball, demolish houses and stuff.
Yeah i got afterschool drawing lessons when i was in my 5th year of high school (is it high school? We say middelbare school). I learned how to watch the thing you want to draw. After that i didn't want to draw realistic anymore so i started drawing little monsters etc, wich i couldn't draw in these classes. I think i learned the most by drawing for myself in schoolbooks etc. That's when you can loose control over your thinking ability and make the best drawings.
Today are you living from your art, or do you do something else for a living ?
I am trying to make a living out of it, but it is not enough yet. So i make lots of other stuff too, from logos and websites to birth cards and i am even designing a gate at the moment. Next to that i am a chauffeur for a venue, so i bring the dj's to the airport and stuff. But hopefully i can grow more and more into the art thing.
No i'm not, too bad. It would be really great if there was a mag i could draw for on a regular basis. It's allways very cool if your work can be seen by more people than just the client you made a piece for.
Where does your influence come from? Is there any artists/graphists you particularly like, what are your influences?
Mu influences come from a lot of artists, but the first artist i got very much influenced by was pushead. If i saw an lp with his drawing on it, it would immediately buy it. Than offcourse there is John Dyer Bazley (don't know if i'm writing this correctly, excuse me if i didn't), of wich i buy everything off too. But i like stuff like Mc Bess also and there's too much great artists wich i am influenced by. The problem is that there is so much great work, that i allways forget all the names that i really like and loose track of them. Thank god for bookmarks. One guy i got influenced by on a whole new level was Seher one, a friend of mine when i worked in Mexico City for half a year. Thanks to this guy i discovered that you can make great work on walls too without being too graffiti-ish. And i absolutely love his colours.
Depends a little what kind of thing i have to make. When i draw for a band, i begin with listening to the music and scrolling through my inspiration folder. This is where i store everything that i see that triggers me. Can be a building, a picture of a woman or a tattoo i saw. Than i get an idea and sketch it, quickly ink it and let it sink for a day. Then the next day i see it and get a much better idea so i start with a new drawing completely, but this time i keep in mind the positioning of every element that has to get into the work.
When i'm done sketching, i trace the lines with my home made light box and i ink without to much pencil lines so that i don't have to erase an army of pencil mistakes. I trace another time and do the colouring on that one. I scan both the pictures and do some final colouring and leveling on my computer.
Most of the work is done by hand, i love trying out new brushes and inks. I can make myself happy for several days with a new pen, or an electric eraser or something. It's like when you buy new shoes, you just want to go outside and use them. Only my colouring is still to much done on computer. I'm trying to do more and more by hand.
That and i love mistakes on paper, like when you accidently drop some ink on your paper, but instead of trying to get rid of it just make it part of the picture. This is not possible with a computer, because you cannot make any mistakes. Instead you try to make your painting more "real" by putting a paper kinda texture over it, or a fake drop somewhere. Not that that is a bad thing, because i absolutely love the works of for example Jason Levesque aka stunkid, but i like the surprise you can get when you draw on paper and something else comes out than you expected.
Depends, some posters i do in a day, and some i do in a week.
You have a very distinctive style, are you doing only what you feel like or if tomorrow somebody asks you an oil painting with horses running out of water with a sunset backdrop, is it a problem or are you up for it ?
Well that's no problems, but i'll make them a painting in my style. I could not copy something that they might have seen somehwere, i would go crazy in my own little world filled with horses and sunsets.
For which band have you already worked for?
I made stuff indirectly for the Melvins (best band in the world to make a poster for), Karma to Burn, Tweak Bird, Bandito offcourse, Tank 86, Hail of Bullets, Black Bottle Riot and a list of bands from my region, like Geiser, Stoner Front Nijmegen.
From the moment i started making posters, i allways dreamt about making a poster for the Melvins. The poster i did make for them was for Patronaat (a venue in the Netherlands), but i'd love to make a tour poster for them.
Do you choose the artists yourself?
No i am not in that luxury yet, although i have never had to do something for a band wich i didn't like. All the bands i have worked for are cool people with cool music. Pretty lucky, i don't think i could lie to a band telling them i dig their music while it makes me sick, pure for the work.
What is the most difficult part in designing a poster ?
Definitely the composition, i'm really bad at that.
No i am not, where i live there aren't so much people who are in the same business as i am. At least, not that i know off. That's too bad, because it'd be really good to have some partners in crime. I'm thinkin about moving to Berlin, or San Fransisco or whatever for just that reason. There is not much going on for me here.
A bit of self-promotion, take advantage of it, it's free, where can we see your work , on the web or in real life?
On my website http://www.jordjansen.com/ i have my portfolio and a blog, wich i'm trying to keep up to date like once every week. I am digging twitter, wich i just discovered and trying to make the best out of now. Follow me @jansenjord and give me a shout out! O jeah, i have a tumblr too, don't know the adress though, but it probably is something with jordjansen too.
In real life you can see me painting walls and stores, and hopefully i'll be doing some live painting somewhere in the next couple of months. That's be cool to do, with some other artists or something!
Well, the fact that people i don't know contact me to tell me they like my stuff is one of the best praises i can get. And lately i get more and more people telling me they like it.
What can we wish you for the future?
That in 2012 i'll be in Juxtapoz with my work traveling around the world, hopla!
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