Spent the whole evening by the water. It was sooo hot and you have to remember we are in Sweden here and temperatures above 30 degrees C are very rare. But yesterday was one of those days and the very cold and deep lake Vättern could barely cool you off. Rare that too. Last week the watertemperature was +16 and westerday almost 24!!!!
For my birthday I was warmly welcomed at my sisters and we had a great couple of days together. Here is a view from their house. Their new heater on the left is the newest addition. They always have some project going on.
I´m probably many peoples nightmare doing this, drawing people on the cliffs in their bathing suits but hey, noone are really portrayed that well. My sister and niece are among the figures but that´s all I will say.This is how I´ve been spending my days lately. It´s really hot but we are fortunate to have plenty of lakes to take a swim and cool off in. I´m living within 5 minutes from the water... so now I´ll grab my towel and my bike and I´m off for an evening dip. Have a nice day/evening.
It´s nice in the harbour with the view and all the boats. But I preferred these little red houses today. The first one belong to the sailclub. Not a yacht club or anything fancy, mostly they have classes for kids, teaching them to sail. 
Summer in sweden is short but it´s so lovely to be able to just sit down and draw anywhere, without freezing your butt off. Could someone move the gulfstream a bit closer please. This one is from our town park. Hundred years ago Hjo was a vacation resort and the villas where built for the visiting guests. Some of the houses are still available as hotel accomodations. And all of them are all in different colors and shapes.
Hello, all blog readers. It´s really inspiring to continue this blog with the kind words you pour over me! The problem is that I get so eager to work with the blog that I forget about preparing for my watercolorclass in two weeks and my other commissions. The later have somehow spilled over and into my vacation by the way.... hm, how did that happen...... again!
Here are two sketches I made by Lake Hornborgasjön this sunday. If any of you blogreaders don´t want a history lesson please stop reading now.
I had to raise really early today despite it was sunday morning. I drove my artistic friends Barbro and Lennart to the railwaystation. They were heading off for Florence- (oh, no I´m not jealous at all). Since the gas prize these days is so high I felt I had to take advantage of the miles I had already driven and continued for half an hour to my friend Susanne for sunday breakfast. She lives in a very beautiful landscape close to lake Hornborga-sjön. And it is in these parts I organize my 4-day watercolor class each summer. Today i decided to spend the rest of the day making some preparations for my class, such as checking out places to sit, nice motifs and practical stuff as parking places. I started out down by the lake and I will publish some sketches from there tomorrow. Afterwards I continued to Varnhem, a great historical place. It was an important friary in the 12th century and the burial place for some of Swedens first kings. Today you can walk around and look at the remains of the friary and visit the church. It has changed it´s appearance over the years but the older parts are from around 1100. It is a pretty complicated building to draw and the perspective really put you to the test with all the steep angles that raise above you. It´s fun though. Since some of you wonder how I make these sketches I will publish an old painting I did some years in watercolor. I like that too but these days I prefer the must faster sketches and the coloring in photoshop (an increasing restlessness maybe).
Somehow I think that I tend to draw and paint in the same illustrative style whatever media I use. I don´t know what you think or if you have the same experience.
This is from Anita Davies at Art by Anita Thank you very much Anita.
Sherrie asked me what paper and pens I use. I´m always searching for good sketchbooks and when I find something I like I buy it so I have plenty of books that are waiting for me. I tend to prefer square shaped books, with a threadbinding. My favourites measure about 25x25 cm. The binding allows me to draw over the back binding and since I often draw architecture I find that this format suites me. The paper must be opaque enough so I can draw on both sidesof the paper. That seem to be a problem tough. I sketch with a Pilot pen with reservoir tip, nothing fancy. But my bags tend to be filled with them. For many years I did nothing but watercolors but today I prefer these really fast sketches made on the spot. Back home I then scan the drawings I like and color them in photoshop. It´s important to me to keep the handmade feeling in the pictures especially since I color them digitally.
I spent yesterday in Gothenburg with a handful of friends all eager to do some sketching. The weather was a bit unpredictable so we spent some time at a café escaping the rain showers. To top sketch is from one of those showers. You draw what you have in front of you, right. Around the corner is one of the best art supply stores in this area so we didn´t suffer. The second sketch pictures Hampus, our youngest artist, in a moment of deep koncentration. In the afternoon, we wondered off in to Haga. An old part of Gothenburg that today is a area full of cafés and design shops. A lot of artists and musicians live in this neighbourhood. All year around it´s full of tourists and people just strolling around. A big reason is probably the relief in not having to share the streets with cars.
When I studied for my Design degree I lived really close by and this was actually part of my walk to university.
Have been in Scotland for a week together with my choir, Skövde Gospel. It´s been a week of singing and laughing but I also managed to get some sketches done between conserts and sightseing. It was raining a bit almost every day wich also disturbed my sketching-moments. The first image is our hotel in central Glasgow. What immediately strikes you when you travel is the color palette that shiftes between different countries and within a country as well. Many might see Sweden as a cold and pale place but being abroad actually makes me realize how colorful our architecture is for one thing. Red and yellow houses with bright orange tile roofs is so common to my eye that it´s not until a visit other cities with a lot of grey stone houses that I see the differences. It was great to be back in Scotland tough. It has been 14 years since the last time.
These two are from Edinburgh. My choir got the opportunity to sing in the Great Hall of the castle. Afterwards we had a couple of hours to see the town. Far to little. Quite frustrated I did these two while we had a cup of coffee and in the last case leaning against a wall. 
