more of myself

Two self studies, made last week. That's all for now.

bye bye Kavala

I hope to be back some day.

food stuffs à la grecque

It hadn't rained for four (4) months, when the sky decided to open itself. Luckily we were in a restaurant having dinner. It was quite cosy actually.

greek sweetness

Spot the three dots.

Kavala - finally

Last week we were off to Kavala, Greece, to spend a week with Mattias who's been there on a grant for three weeks. But we almost didn't make it there. My dear husband had filled in his name instead of mine on the tickets, and Lufthansa would not do a name change. The girls and I had to go back home, upset and disappointed. And poor Mattias, sitting in Kavala, not being able to do anything either.

Luckily we did find some last minute tickets, not too expensive, and were able to fly off, 2 days late! So we had a lovely week. Although the weather reminded us more of a swedish summer: you never knew what the weather would be like or what the temperature was going to be.


The girls love to swim and the water was still warm so we hit the beach immediately.


Peramos, off season.




We spent two days on the island of Thassos, at Limenaria.


Thassos.


Metallia beach, off season.


Our marble castle.

blacks and yellows

This week I only managed to do one self portrait, which means only one day in the studio :( I've had some commission work to do at home.




This is another of my projects. I'm not sure yet where I'm going with this one, only that the paper is very large and I'm planning on filling it with my little "cells".

My studio mate had brought a sunflower for a still life painting. She pointed out the similarities between the flower and my drawing.

Nothing beats nature...


Tomorrow the girls and I fly off to Greece! Mattias' three weeks of freedom in the sun are over. We'll spend one week roasting somewhere, perhaps on the island of Thassos, and then we'll all go back to the cold, rainy north again. Yay.

Hope you all have a great week!

Ilva in Uppsala

Yesterday evening I went to the opening of Ilva Berettas photo exhibition at Ekocaféet in Uppsala. I know Ilva only from the blog community; she lives in Tuscany, Italy, writes about food and photography in three languages and is an extremely good photographer. I couldn't stay long, just in between trains, but I had a very nice time during my short visit. This was the first time we met in real life – but it was as like meeting with an old friend!

Ilvas photos are beautiful and we were served very tasty – ecological of course – tapas. I'll bring the family here, next time we're in town.







The artist herself.

self studies

I've decided to start every day (when I'm in the studio) with a self portait. Like a morning exercise. That way I don't have to waste any time thinking about what to do, I can get right down to business. When I'm done with the portait, I have a more time consuming project beside me. I'll post pictures of that later.



Oops, turned out a bit skinny here...


Room with a view.

graffiti

Nice, nice, nice – and not so nice.






Door of my brothers house in Gothenburg.

walk my way

This morning was wet and I had to drag Asta around for our morning walk. There are all kinds of mysterious sounds in the woods after the rain; it drips and drops and sighs and cracks. She gets all jumpy and jittery, stopping every 3 meters, perking up her ears, one front paw up, ready to flee. So I have a lot of time to look at the nature around us.

new space

I enrolled in the local art school.
I'm not really sure what I'm doing, but things just sort of happened, and sometimes you have to go with the flow.

I was feeling an urge to work larger and "messier", but I didn't want to mess up our newly renovated studio at home. I also need to get out of the house and meet some new people (no offense, dear husband!) after all we've been living here a year and hardly know anyone (I exaggerate, but still).

After a visit to the schools Open House in the beginning of summer, I spoke with the art teachers. I was welcome to do a "Project year". There will be 6 of us doing our own projects. The teachers reason that the first year students benefit from this as well.

It means I get access to a studio, art teachers - well, everything that's included in the art school schedule. But I decide what I want to do and when I want to be there. And it's free of charge. That's Sweden for you.

This is the studio, I share it with another woman.


This is my corner, my wall.


Sorry Asta, no pets allowed :(

Galleri Hedengrens Trappa

Photos from the opening of my show at Hedengrens Bookshop on Thursday 28th of August. The gallery is located inside, hence the name Galleri Hedengrens Trappa; "trappa" means staircase in Swedish. The bookshop is situated in the centre of Stockholm, at Stureplan.





Some of my work on either side of the staircase. I'm at the bottom with my daughter Olivia and Anna-Lena, one of three responsible of the gallery.


Nature Morte.


This is one of three bookcovers I've been working on. It's called "The way out". Unfortunately I didn't get shots of the other two. I'll post photos of them later.


"Fall" and "Spring" (shot at home).


A whole bookshop at your disposal when you get bored of your mother.


Hello goodbye.


Everything went well, I was very pleased, though feeling quite exhausted afterwards, but in a good way.

I missed Mattias of course, but also all our friends from Gothenburg - it's just too far to travel in the middle of the week. We still don't know very many people in our new surroundings here. But a really old friend turned up, and it was great to see her again. So I'm happy!