Wednesday

Today we headed out to Skansen, on the island of Djurgården.  It is a large park where they have collected over the years old homes and buildings from all over Sweden.  The people who work there, dress up in period costumes doing the activities from that era, so it becomes an artists dream to paint and photograph there.

I talked to a lot of the girls and asked them to pose as if they were doing some activity from the time period they represented, told them we were artists and hoped for the best when three camera’s started clicking.  Sometimes we sounded more like the Paparazzi, causing guest to talk and wonder if we were from some magazine company.

With these two girls I think we spent a good half hour just talking and listening to them making cheese, they soon relaxed with the sound of camera’s and we really got some good material. 

This woman was collecting nettles to make a fiber for making cloths.  For anyone who knows this plant, if you brush up against the leaves you will know it. The burning sensation lasts for quite a while.  I had the unfortunate luck of falling face first into a pile of them once in Germany; tripped over a wire that was on the ground. I was swollen for several hours afterwards.

We all walked a lot of miles today and got plenty of good subject matter for future paintings.  Tomorrow we are heading back with the easels to do some paintings. They don’t allow it in the building but outside is okay.

Richard Boyer