We’ve been enjoying this week in Iceland. We’ve left the island of Hrísey after a amazing month painting in beautiful Eyjafjordur.
For those of you just tuning in I am in Iceland completing an artist residency of the northern coast of Iceland in Eyjafjordur. This is my story.
Some highlights this week included the most amazing Northern Lights of my life. My residency mates and mother in law Deb witnessed these first hand at 1 am. They danced before my eyes making this one of the most memorable nature scenes I’ve ever laid eyes on.
Inspiring we’re the northern lights that it was time to paint them.
After fiery night skies we enjoyed daylight and landscapes. We also did some picturesque hikes to Borkabrik and lava dikes on the island.
I created a painting based on beautiful Borkabrik rendered in oil. My absolute favorite landscape view during this painting residency. The painting in oil was made with only one palette knife and is rendered impasto with ultramarine, phalo, and cerulean blues. This painting was in my international exhibit in Hrísey, Iceland last Saturday.
It snowed, rained and shined sun on this hike.
The landscape was reminiscent of Ireland for sure.
And we enjoyed the tradition Icelandic hiking signs 😀
Jonah ate many blueberries as usual.
I created a painting based on the blueberry fields from this hue which I hoe to render large scale in 2019 in oil. Here is the painting on the left and the photo on the right below. This painting was in my international exhibit in Hrísey, Iceland last Saturday.
We enjoyed The snow capped mountains which finally graced the island, such a difference from the brown mountains earlier this month.
After snowy hikes and aurora hunting we continued to make our way around the west side of the country and enjoyed waterfalls! These waterfalls flow over lava rock, into a river, then lava rock again.
Jonah has seen amazing things on this trip.
A mouthwatering lefse (yes, LEFSE!) was tickling my Scandinavian bones as I dined on it with brown sugar and Smjor butter at the airport cafe waiting for our rental car, thank you Nordic countries for this delight!
We started to make our way to the Blue Lagoon, Iceland’s famous soaking baths with remarkably blue water.
We enjoyed the glowing blue of silica and sulfur which make these so vibrant.
Within minutes the water changed from a sea foam green to icy blue as the clouds and rain moved in and out throughout the afternoon which made for interesting photos.
A scene from another world, so amazing we get to experience something like this on the earth.
My awesome mother in law, Deb, enjoyed a silica mud mask in the surreal blue waters while Jonah and I had a snack.
One of the most interesting places I’ve ever seen for sure.
I created the painting above based on blue nature baths of Iceland, combining cerulean blue with titanium white and diluting with linseed oil gives the absolute perfect silica blue! This painting was in my international exhibit in Hrísey, Iceland last Saturday as well.
There are watery blue baths around Iceland in about 4 areas of the country. All lovely!
We will continue our adventures around Iceland in the next post capturing Borgarnes, Akureyri, and Reykjavik. Thanks for tuning in!
Jonah’s ready to see the rest of Iceland!