A much needed break from the studio!

After an intense period in the studio it is so nice to just leave the art world and enjoy snow, sun and the company of two of my kids! A few days of great skiing in Wolf Creek, Colorado.

Simon is demonstrating the art of aggressive carving.

Victoria is showing elegance, control and great speed. Hard to keep up with her.

The purpose of our trip was to make a back country skier out of Victoria. Success!

Great focus and control! Great Fun!

Daddy cruising through the forest. Great shot by Victoria.

Another cool shot by Victoria. Me having a great time. Shouts of joy!

Simon is taking a leap of playfulness, Victoria waiting her turn.

Proud and happy father. Extremely pleased daughter (“best skiing ever!”). Nice shot by Simon. The wilderness of southern Colorado behind us.

Therapy continued

Just relaxing, no ambition, just enjoying the act of painting. The three pieces below are pretty small, 15 x 12 cm.

Crazy work, but fun

The past two weekends I have painted silly, crazy stuff in the company of 11 other painters. Last night our posters were shown and presented by Lars Vilks at a large dinner in Lund. The first picture below is my poster and the second picture is the one we all painted together, showing Lars Vilks in the “circle” of dogs/painters (us, partly self portraits).

I need therapy!

In the past few weeks I have been struggling and trying hard to move on and find new and improved ideas to work with. It has nearly driven me crazy (slight exaggeration) and been rather frustrating. I have probably tried too hard and need a break. My therapist (wife) has advised me to just paint… “what?” I ask her. Just paint what is within you! It must be nice to be a consultant, to advice others what to do and not having to prove anything yourself. But she is often right and is a very good support, so I just tried to paint and draw whatever I thought of and found in the studio. A few examples below. Not finished…

Tomorrow I may be able to show a few pictures of what I have been painting during the past two weekends. Crazy stuff! 🙂

Red string

I won’t do anything more than this. There is just a red string going across the piece. It will soon be on display at Kafé Zolo in Höganäs.

Adding layers

I have enjoyed the process of adding layers of paint to this piece. Having the courage to fail, covering something you are reasonably pleased with and watching something even better emerge as you either wipe away the paint or add layers of different colors. This is how it looks after my work today.

I have added both warmth, softness and contrast. Now it does not matter who it is – to me it is just a painting of a timeless youth. Below a couple to close-ups, enlargements. The size of the entire piece is 30 x 25 cm. The width of the eye is 3 cm. The close up is maybe not relevant, because it is closer than what I can see when I paint, but I find it interesting to see the individual brush strokes and how adding layers of paint creates a sense of depth.

Never done that… again

Today I did something I have never tried before.

Covered this piece with a solid black. Then I wiped off most and added a touch of zink white in some places and softened it all out. Kind of dark…?

Shadow in the night

In order for a shadow to exist there has to be light…

Unfortunately I cannot show what I have been working on in the weekend. I have painted in the company of ten men for two full days, an unusual experience, but both fun and pleasant. Maybe I will be able to show it later…