Our Christmas eve..

A traditional Swedish Christmas at Gotland.

The old fashioned kitchen.

The dining room

A beautiful tree..

The Gustavian parlor decked up for glögg or gluhwine! And the gingerbread house.

A beautiful tree..

Polly under the table with all the goodies having a hard time keeping her hungry lusts at bay!
Well, she soon got her share too!

God Jul och Gott Nytt År
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
Joyeux Noël et une Heureuse Anné 2012

Twinkle twinkle..

Stella, my sister´s darling grandchild sings "Twinkle,twinkle little star" in Swedish.
Filmed by her mother Stephanie!
I say only one word: PRICELESS!

Computer graffiti

Christmas morning
Facebook has a graffiti program sooo great to use.
Here are a few pieces I made on the computer in this program (when I did not have the energy to bring out the brushes..) Great fun!

Cap Ferrat

The dollhouse´s new easy chair

"He lived in the shadows, boozed a lot-but oh, so exciting!"

No more..

Sandhamn, the Stockholm archipelagoThe peaceful moon over the endless waters

The 13th of December..

..is the day of Santa Lucia in Sweden. An old tradition during the darkest period of the year in Scandinavia. It was a nice day, the Lucia day with still no snow in my part of Sweden.
So we deceided to take a tour with pony Hälge - darned with his jinglebells - in the chariot.
Here we are next to my house. Hälge is an extemely eccentric pony with a will of his own. I love his glare when he peeks at you with his naughty pony eyes: one is dark brown and the other clear blue!
Happy Lucia to you all!

November images..

Winding down..

The Still life of November.

A time for painting. My latest oil painting:
" A November kiss".

The abundance of apples The making of must

The many kinds of apples render..

..a spectrum of colors to the must and cider.

The eggs from the farm often hold two yolks.

The beautiful chestnut tree losing its leaves..

The sun sinking at 4 o´clock..

..and the moon rising shortly after..

November is a time for art exhibitions..

This one is at Sanda, Gotland, promoting women artists living on the island.

Digital art by me. I will soon embark on the task of turning this image into an "summer jog" oil painting. (After the copping of today´s ration of firewood! My little studio is heated only by a small stove. Brrrr.)
Time to put the sneekers on the shelf and bring out the lined leather boots!

Coming to a point..

..when I could not stand the old, grey wallpapers from the 70´s of my studio anymore, I just had a freaky spell at them the other day. To the sound of the cosy stove burning (and Joe Cocker) I frantically started to paint the walls with"feel-good" pictures.

There were tributes to Niki de St Phalle.
Tinguely and Niki
She, her very person, and her poetry and crazy, great art that is like a roller coaster to your mind and makes you constantly feel good!
Her Buddha sculpture in Israel.
Niki: Mistress of the Universe.

And from Niki to Alice - Mistress of the Wonderland - copied from an old story book I bought in an antiquarian bookshop in Harare, Zimbabwe in the 80´s. Alice in this old story book is the spitting image of..
Alice Liddell in a photo of taken by Lewis Carroll himself in 1858.

Design above the little stove.

I am going to add some more Niki´s. Maybe this one?
Sooo lovely - don´t you think?

Or this one?

Or may be all of them?

Exhaused, I later fell asleep on the sofa next to the silky hunting beagle snoring away in the library while the autumn darkness fell over the now completely stripped apple trees outside the windows. It is still unusually warm in Sweden for November, so today I will abandon the paint brushes to collect the last walnuts on the ground as well as the last red winter apples.
AND it is high time to find somebody to lend me a Lagotto dog to sniff up the Gotland truffles of the season!
On the sunny Sunday morning by the way, we had some 50 flounders/flat fish in the net! And had them smoked in my brother-in-law´s homebuilt smokehouse. Delicious!
Last year´s truffle catch.

Sunday morning, sunrise at Sandhamn, the Stockholm archipelago.

Trying out the new panorama application on my IPhone. Worked quite OK despite the fact I was not able to cope with the stitching and adjusting of light the way you do with the panning in Photoshop. But this time I travelled light without a computer so it will just have to do.The boats are now resting ashore for the winter; a few sailingboats were spotted at sea though, and there is a stunning tranquility lingering over the autumn days in the outer archipelago. With all turists gone you spendgood times at the Sandhamn´s wellknown Inn talking at lengths to old friends and all-year-around inhabitants (the natives! :-) of the island - like I was myself some years ago. Nice! But now I am flying off back to Gotland again to the old farm with the redroof and the 10000 apples!
Bye Sandhamn for now!

Childhood memories..

In my summerhouse in Sandhamn in the Stockholm archipelago, I stumbled upon my old song book "Mors lilla Olle" (Mother's little Olle) with its lovely illustrations by Elsa Beskow and just had to share.. EB is placed deep in most Swedish hearts - and definitely in mine!
Had to share with you!