Friday

Its been a while, my daughter and I were over in Sweden visiting our son working at a Ski resort in Vemdalen, It was spring break so we took off ten days. for me this was one of the shortest times I've spent in Europe. It seems as soon as you get over the jet lag your back on the plane again.

Victor was staying in a nice cottage almost walking distance from the resort. Guests would put on their skis and head on down the hill. This view is out the front door. now his job wasn't the most exciting thing to do, they had to clean rental units everyday for a company. He needed the job to earn some money and one of the perks was a free seasons pass to the local ski resorts. They also collected a lot of gear from guests just leaving stuff behind. 

Our first day of skiing was quite cloudy at the resort called Vemdalan, but it was fun to try a new place that evening I made lasagna for them.

The next day the weather cleared up and we tried a new resort called Bjornrika, about twenty minutes farther down the road.  This mountain was quite a bit higher and a lot more fun to ski. The hill was more set up for racing which was a lot of fun.

After several days we all drove back to Osthammar to stay with Victors Grandmother, at 87 she was glad to have the company. Sweden was a good month behind Salt Lake City with the arrival of spring. There many of the lakes and coastline were still covered, or had ice remaining. the trees were all grey from winter still.

Well all good things have to come to an end and reality hits you again. I found out as a signature member of the American Society of Marine painters I am required to submit a painting to their annual show. The deadline is next weekend!  So I started a painting, 22x34 of Shackleton's boat the "Endeavor"  I pulled some old black and white images off the internet of his boat before it went under the ice. Now I am also inspired by a German artist, Casper David Friedrich ( 1774 - 1840 ) who did a similar piece of a shipwreck with large ice blocks in the arctic.  I've kept it in my own composition but used similar colors that he used. His shipwreck was reduced to a few pieces of crushed wood, where mine is more intact.

The painting is really quite wet now so it will need to set up a few days. then I can hit it again with richer colors and it should really start to sing. Or so I hope!

Richard Boyer