This painting started 'life' as a Plein Air study, and this is the studio version of it. It is a place I like to visit, quite near to my home. A narrow sound (or strait) between two islands in the Stockholm archipelago, a lovely spot that is also the place of a famous battle.

The Battle of Stäket 1719

 (Adapted from Wikipedia.) Russia sent a large Baltic fleet with orders to pillage and harass the eastern Swedish seaboard. The Russian fleet proceeded burning cities and farmsteads.

The Russian admiral Apraxin had already investigated Baggensstäket, "the backdoor to Stockholm" (a narrow sound) as a way to reach the capital city without passing the fortress.

On August 10, Russian units were spotted in the archipelago. If they could pass through Baggenstäket it would be possible to reach the capital while completely out of reach of the cannon of Vaxholm.

On the morning of August 13, Russian galleys had been spotted at the entrance to the passage. The closest large Swedish army unit, the 800-man Södermanlands regemente, was alerted and force marched 19 kilometers to meet the enemy. A small force was sent ahead to protect the arrival of the rest of the regiment. After a rapid march through rocky and densly forested terrain under a hot summer sun, they  reached Baggenstäket before 7pm without encountering any fire. However the Russians by then had disembarked their forces, on both sides of the channel's eastern entrance. (Right behind us in the painting.) The Swedish forces arrived, and battle was engaged.

After two hours of confused fighting the battle was over, and the Russian solidiers retreated into their landing craft.

This “minor victory”, as it is called, may have been major in the respect that the capital was not taken by the Russians. Swedes speak Swedish, not Russian, thanks to the valiant and heavily outnumbered forces beating the Russians. It is quite possible the pile of stones in the painting were used to sink the ships that blocked the straits.

Today, the spot is nearly as rural and idyllic as in the 18^th century.The nursery garden belonging to the near manor has a cafe with a view, children swim here, adults picknick or hop into a little boat, heading for the Baltic Sea.

See a larger image of the painting in the Landscape section of the site.

Taking a walk in the park surrounding a manor, (Tyresö slott near Stockholm, Sweden) during one of the few sunny days in this unusually cold and snowy winter, I came upon this cottage, nestled in comfortably by snow and trees. While not a perfect scene, I saw some potentialities for a painting, and took some pictures.

Reference image:



Now, this is far from a perfect ref, so let's see what can be done with it. I really didn't like the straight dark band of distant land crossing the picture from left to right, the shape is quite boring, and separates the picture in two halves. I started to play with it in the small format of Notan, where I worked out how to place the darks and the lights, finding good relationships and interesting shapes. The first notan in top left is just an exploration of the actual image:



I simplify the Notan progressively, and in the middle row, rightmost picture, I'm starting to find what feels right. I still have to find a way to anchor the darker shapes to either the top or the bottom of the picture. I try bottom first, and that works fine. The notan marked with an arrow is the one I choose as a basis for the painting.

Next the 'cartoon drawing' was made on the artist's quality sandpaper, which was then blocked in with the underpainting. Follow the progress here:


The painting took over, and decided it wanted a stream instead of a road, in stage 2. Evaluating the image, I found the stream lead too quickly to the house in a boring straight line, so before continuing, I changed the shape of the banks, and worked a bit further on the background copse of winterbare trees. In stage 3, I have decided that the foreground trees need a softer approach than bare branches would be, so I add dried and browned clusters of leaves. Only in stage four do I scumble nearly white pastels over the snow, to give the coolness and whiteness of snow.

I've made an effort to keep the simple structure from the Notan, and here is how the finished painting in black and white looks side by side with the Notan:



Quite close, although I instituted a row of lower bushes to the mid left, to provide more depth in the painting.

Now, this is a fairly large painting, and details vanish when shrunk to such a small picture as seen on your computer screen. This detail shows how the blue of the sky is actually woven together with not only blues, but also greens and purples. This weaving is part of why my paintings can be called Impressionist:



When comparing with the largest picture of the painting, can you find from which part of the sky this closeup is taken?

Dear readers, here is one of the paintings you could read about in my early February (2010) newsletter. The changes have been made, and it is finished. This is one of the main bridges in Stockholm, Sweden, connecting the northern parts of the city with the southern parts spanning the Lake Mälaren which bisects Stockholm.

I was attracted to the light (no surprise there!) as it painted parts of the bridge in gold, making the struts resemble a giant harp vibrating a melody of sparkling dripping light.

In the below composite image, I show how it grew forth, from a rough underpainting where the major masses were blocked in, to the finished painting. Paper is ArtSpectrum Colourfix, and pastels are mostly Unisons, with a finishing highlight or two of Schmincke:



Click here to see a large version of the painting.

Having spent 3 weeks on exhibiting, writing, and other 'stuff', both art-related and not, I could no longer hold back the urge to paint.

The short and oh-so-glorious time when the leaves blazes in the landscape, a country road, wind rustling the leaves, the sun golden and still warm on your cheek. Just a few days later, the leaves will have blown off, the sky be cloudy, but this golden moment captured in sparkling pastel will stay forever and warm the heart.

See a larger version of the painting by clicking here.

Reference photo courtesy of Tatiana Myers.

The title of this painting is from an Simon & Garfunkle song, the one that makes you feel grooooo-vy. Coming back into the studio after a break, I thought "Hello Lamppost", and then the song looped inside my skull for three whole days. The location is in my home town, Stockholm, in Sweden. 

This painting, With a View, is painted with the relatively new type of super soft pastel that doesn't come as a stick, but in a pan, looking much like a large eyeshadow pan. It is developed by an artist, and you can read more about them at the PanPastel site.

The medieval 'kernel' of Stockholm -- the Old Town -- also called The City Between Bridges, is on a rather small island controlling the entrance to lake Mälaren. The modern Stockholm is built on the shores north and south of the Old Town, as the city has sprawled since the 1200s. This street, Storkyrkobrinken, is one of the oldest, and it leads to the Luteran cathedral and the Royal Palace, which are right behind us as we look down the sloping street. Many of the beautiful old buildings are ochre, orange, earth red, and other colours, partially why I (local patriot!) regard Stockholm as one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.

This painting was supposed to be a sketch... but I found myself mesmerized by trying to capture the shimmer of the water, and then I had to bring the rest of the painting up to nearly the same degree of finish, and I had a painting. Originally simply called 'Gondolier', but, with the main focus on the water, I simply had to change the name.

A hot hazy summer day. The coolest place to be is in or on the water, so you stroll down to the boathouse to take your canoe and lazily glide over the surface of the pond, making no haste, as you have long vacations that just started. And you almost fall azzzzzleep....

Can you feel the calm clear salty air, smell a whiff of sea-weed, as you're going down to the little boat to row out and fish in the magic bright night of the midnight sun above the arctic circle? 

A quick sketch, the last painting I did for my upcoming show this weekend. I like to include a few studies and sketches in every show, and they go for a much lower amount than the full paintings do. Often a sketch is more spontaneous and shows the process of the artist's thinking, and of testing and experimenting, and can therefore become valuable records of an artist's progress in the future. So even if they are not as carefully planned and painted as a full painting, and may contain errors, the certainly qualify as "affordable art", and if both I and the collector are lucky, it will become precious.

I also include sketches as prelimnary studies displayed together with the painting, if a painting grew out of a sketch. I sell them either separately, or together for a package price. The package is a very nice thing for the collector, who can choose to hang them together and have a cool conversational piece. Or maybe hang the painting at home, and take the sketch to their office, or give the sketch as a present. That is definitely more value for the money, and I like to give that.

This is a landscape if found really exciting to paint. It is almost like a great outdoors hall, with the steep near vertical cliffs, and the smooth 'floor' of the water. It was also a challenge to make grey cliffs out of the bright colours of my pastel sticks. No actual grey has been used, only prismatic colours.

But, colour isn't all, not even to me. First, there is Design. I made a large number of Notans (really small thumbnail sketches) to map out the darks and the lights. I'm continuing the study of Notan, as it is a very efficient tool.



I know they look just like a jumble of spots, but if you look closely, you can see that I've used 4 values (paper, light grey, mid grey, black) to test different ideas. The big dark cliff has been extended upwards, or cropped. The very bg cliff has been very light, or mid grey. All cliffs have gotten different heights in different combinations. There's been more or less sky visible, and as the sky was an arrow-shape, I decided early on to let the lighted part of the cliff that vanishes in distance have lost edges with the sky, so the arrow would point to the area of interest, which is where the river bends around the cliff. Tricky thing was to try to subdue the fg brightly lit cliff on the right, and the dark to the left.

I've tried to make the masses of value connect, or at least point to each other (as with the darkest darks). There is a flow of lighter and midvalue from sky to left side of the river (vaguely an s-shape), bridged by the exclamaition mark ! of the far away lit cliff.

Those 30-seconds studies led to this underpainting:



As I was working on Fisher 400 artist's sandpaper, I could layer a lot, and there is no need for a fixative.

The rather 'wild' colours of the underpainting get subdued as I layer on them, but they are what sets the quantity of light, and that is kept through the whole painting process.

See a larger version of the finished painting here.

In this painting I've explored what a fairly large grey area does to enhance the glow of light. I also worked on the composition, to put the rusty old truck in a harmonic spot that is visually interesting.

I'm heading towards including more evidence of human activity in my landscapes. I figure there are signs of bovine or equinine activity too, as the yellowed grass is cropped short. But what does a city-girl know about agriculture... it could be mown and harvested, too. What caught me was the distinct shapes and the beautiful autumnal colours.

Charlie