From the first Nisse artist to my Nisse designs.

Nisse design in Christmas Peace.

Lundbye added to Nisse school illustration

From a quick search on Google, the first ever Nisse/Goblin was described in Olaus Magnus' history of the Nordic peoples from 1555. There is a good description here about the book and the illustration. Here is another interesting article about the evolution of Nisse into Santa Claus.

The first Nisse illustration by Olaus Magnus 1555

The newer version of the Nisse everyone recognizes was illustrated by Johan Thomas Lundbye. This version is what Lars has used in Christmas Peace and is also the illustration I added to the easel in the illustration.

Johan Thomas Lundbye Nissee illustration 1842

When drawing the Nisse for the headers I decided to play and try something different that could be fun for readers. Each Nisse would be different. One might be missing a leg. One might have crooked eyes. Another might be grumpy. This would also make it fun for creating more stories or for card games for children. They could also be used in schools as tools to illustrate differences in people and how we all have elements of us that we feel are different. But the brilliance is that is what makes us unique in our own way. It is all about perception and acceptance.

Illustration of how small the Nisse illustrations are

A closer view of the Nisse from Chapter 2

Once the book was created the images of the Nisse were so small so I will create a book with larger versions so people can see them better. I will make the books available on this site in the coming weeks.

After creating the Nisse and showing them to Lars we agreed they would work. Then I went back to illustrating the main pictures.

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