Icy In The City

Across the ice
Across the ice

Some people thought we were nuts, visiting Iceland in November but it’s so beautiful! We saw the Northern Lights – I can die happy now. Proper snow that sticks, not like over here. Bright, crisp days and iced up lakes and that low slanting sunshine that makes everything glow. We walked alongside the frozen lake in Reykjavik, past a house that we had heard about the day before during our afternoon at the Icelandic Elfschool. The house had been the site of Elf sightings and contact for decades.

Like many old European cities, it has grown organically and the older parts are full of little nooks and crannies, lovely odd houses and surprises around corners. Bright paint decorates many of the corrugated metal walls and roofs and the climate in the city is warm enough for trees.

The food is fabulous! Fish is a staple, in many forms, cooked, pickled, soused, salted, smoked. Lamb is another staple and the national Icelandic Lamb Soup, Kjotsupa, is very similar to the Welsh Cawl and Irish Stew, possibly a nod to their mixed Celtic / Viking heritage. We ate mostly in Cafe Loki which has the maddest mural Husb and I have ever seen. It takes up an entire wall and has scenes from the life of the Nordic god Loki, who was a bit of a bad ‘un so it’s full of slaughtered corpses receding into the distance. But that doesn’t detract from the ambience of the cafe, nor from the delicious food.

Big Boats And Arctic Char

 

At the National Maritime Museum, Reykjavik
At the National Maritime Museum, Reykjavik

Husb and I have had a few days in Reykjavik, Iceland, a beautiful city. We strolled downtown in the crisp brilliant sunshine yesterday to take a look around the old dockland area. There are a lot of museums down there, the National Maritime, the Icelandic Saga and Northern Lights museums. And some lovely places to eat fresh fish too. We stopped for lunch at the Kaffi Vagninn, I stuck with standard fish and chips, delicious light batter and fluffy cod with a delicious selection of mayonnaise sauces. Husb had a gorgeous baked Arctic Char, lightly spiced on a bed of creamy, buttery sweet potato. The area is being redeveloped and it’s a lovely place to visit, walk around, eat and buy locally made goods.

I Have Seen The Lights!

I have finally seen The Northern Lights and it was a truly awesome experience, in the real sense of the word. It inspired awe and wonder. Extraordinary.

Shadows and reflections at Harpa opera house, Reykjavik, Iceland
Shadows and reflections at Harpa opera house, Reykjavik, Iceland

That was at the end of a long day, beginning with a walk around the fantastic Harpa opera house on the seafront, with a view of snow capped mountains across the bay.

Mountains from the Harpa opera house
Mountains from the Harpa opera house

Then we went off to explore Reykjavik on foot through the light snow and ended up at the Elfschool for 4 happy hours eating pancakes, drinking tea and listening to the school’s headmaster, Magnus Skarphedinsson, relating marvellous stories about the Icelandic elves and the people who have seen them.

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On my last visit to Iceland, I had a very odd experience, seeing some strange sights. I drew what I had seen and blogged about it and I have just republished my original blog earlier today. Check it out if you want to see what I saw that time. I thought it might have been the Huldufolk ( Hidden People ) but the head of the Elf School thinks they might have been trolls. How cool is that?

The Hidden People

Visiting Iceland with Husb and yesterday spent a fascinating afternoon at the Elf School, eating delicious pancakes and listening to fascinating stories about Icelandic elves. I have reposted a blog from 3 years ago when I first visited Iceland and encountered some very strange beings. I wondered if they might be elves or the Huldufolk (Hidden People) but the head of the Elf School thinks they are more like trolls.Trolls! How cool is that?

Source: The Hidden People

The Little Volcano

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I’m in the land of ice and fire, Iceland, for a few days. Arrived this morning and on the bus from the airport to Reykjavik, I snapped this little volcanic dome in the grim lava landscape. Been awake since 3am so I am going to get some shut eye now. Good night 😊

Let Sleeping Cats Lie: 2

My Chair

It’s my chair. Mine. You’d never know it!

Sparta Puss won’t give me my chair back!

Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens into an A6 sketchbook.

Quick Kitty Scribbles

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A couple of quick kitty scribbles done in Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens and charcoal into a little A6 sketchbook. Ming The Merciless is one of my favourite models. She’s an elderly one-eyed rescued cat who is nice as pie until she sees the cat basket because that only means one thing, a visit to the vets. Then she turns into psycho kitty!

Paper Geekery

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I spent a happy hour fondling beautiful papers and sniffing oil pigments and pulling on my favourite antique printing press. I was doing some trials on four lovely Japanese papers. This is an Atsukushi White, just 39 gsm. Above is the back of the paper on the woodcut block just after I’d put it through the press.

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And here it is, peeled off the inked surface. I also tried out ShoinBis, Shiohara and Sekishushi. I’ll check them out when they’re dry and see which performed best.

The image is from a little wood block I cut a few years back when Sparta Puss was little. She used to run up the curtains and totally wrecked the nets. One day I grabbed the camera and photographed her pulling shapes as she slid down the curtains. I did some drawings from the photos onto plywood, got out my Flexcut tools and hacked away and then hand printed a small edition of 30, currently available through Artfinder.

 

50 Shades Of Brown

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Yesterday, Husb and I went to the launch of the latest exhibition, Of Site And Song, at the lovely Workers Gallery in Ynyshir. This gorgeous venue recently celebrated its first birthday. It used to be the village library but it was closed down because of austerity cutbacks and artists Gayle Rogers and Chris Williams reopened it as a charming gallery, sculpture workshop, studio and art shop. They have also created a reading area for local people to drop in and browse art books. Chris is a sculptor and he created The Rhondda Tunnel in cardboard as the centrepiece of the new exhibition.

We drove back across the mountain but instead of our usual route  via Maerdy and Aberdare, we went through Treorchy and Pontrhydyfen. Whichever way you go the views are spectacular and during the Autumn the hills are burning with 50 shades of brown. Glorious.

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Another Reflection

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Here’s another piece from a few years back, a watercolour done at Swansea Print Workshop’s life drawing group onto an A3 spiral bound Cotman watercolour pad.