Spruce tops, oil

The climate in northern Sweden, Jämtland, can be very harsh in the winter. I remember that the temperature sometime fell under minus 20 degree Celsius in the winter and some few times even under minus 45 degree Celsius. The oil painting on canvas to the right is made 1982 and I have written "winter moon atmosphere" on the back of it. The village had 60 inhabitants and it was tens of kilometers to the next village. It could off course happen that the electricity fell out or that a moose looked into your window in the evening. Jämtland is a nice and quiet place for a harsh kind of people, the so called "Surjämten".

There is more to this painting. I remember walking into an art shop in Östersund and buying an oil painting tube set and a roll of linen canvas and a brush and I did this with my own pocket money at an age of 14 or 15. The special thing about memory is that I know for sure that I had not been reading any literature about how to paint on oil. I was clueless! I did not even have Turpentine.

I actually don´t have so much drawings preserved from before 1982. Until now I always assumed that the drawings from 1983 and 1984 was the result of that I in 1983 found out that it is handy to have the year noted on the drawings, and I discovered this 1983. There is another explanation and this painting has to do with it and I just discovered this by writing this blog.

Clueless as I was about handling oil paint it became a huge disappointment. The stuff was never drying! Did I go and pick up a book about the subject in the library, no. Did I have a mentor to help me? Definitely not.

So that was 1982. Then 1983 is full of led pencil drawings. Then in 1984 I start with aquarelles. No Oil after 1982 until a year ago. So that could be the explanation: I was so disappointed in oil that I used what I knew and that was the led pencil. The school had put the led pencil in my hand so I knew how to handle it.

I even have an oil painting where "I killed the art". I will see if I can find it and will put it here.

I moved from Sweden to The Netherlands in 1995.

Here on this site, you find my creations because that is what I do. I create.