Talking of time, I´ve been so busy the past days, I haven´t had time to post. But here is a picture that most probably will be in my exhibition in Austevoll in 3 weeks.

Ok. Back to work!

This is a picture of her mother, Angjerd Severine, as a little girl, her brother and their grandparents.

We had such a great afternoon, talking and creating together. Friendship is such a blessing!

The same painting, different lighting.

I´ve been invited to an exhibition in Austevoll in the relative near future, and am spending my evenings painting landscapes from the area.

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Bill Bryson is reading to me today. A short history of nearly everything. That´s a pretty good title. We´ve been through the big bang, into space, onto mountains, below oceans, via physics, chemistry, geology, geography, and now he´s telling me about medicine. If I remember a tenth of wheat he´s telling me, I´ll be very knowledgeable by the end of the day!

– Scott Adams

Well, hopefully you can now see what my little painting is…

The back of a wooden rowing boat, paint chipping off, a copper propeller coated with verdigris, a rusty direction-blade, and seaweed entangled in the rotor-spine, dragged up on a naked rock-face.

Ok. It was a hard one. But hopefully you can see what it is now that I´ve told you. If you can´t, you´d better let me know, I don´t want to embarrass myself.

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I´m on a roll with the audio-books again. I came across a big sale, and invested in lots of Norwegian authors. Today´s novel is of a police investigator hunting a pedophile.

The start, adding layer after layer of acrylics mixed matte medium, to make them see-through (translucent? is that the right word?)

Oh, this stage can last for hours and hours and it´s so frustrating and un-pretty and I always want to give up. Luckily, I know, or at least I think I know, that it will work out all right in the end, if I DON`T give up. It´s a good thing they invented all those audio-books to keep my mind on something else.

Good news! After having heard every single audio book at the library, someone tipped me the iTunes has audio-books. Hallelujah! I´ve already heard Bill Bryson´s book “At home”, a domestic history about everything from when they invented doors in houses (!) to the first tattoo-gun, which was invented by… hold on to your hat: Thomas Edison! Bet you didn´t see that one coming, huh?!

And back to the boat: I did manage to get through to the point where it´s beginning to be real fun painting. There´s always that point, when you can look at it and think “This isn´t so bad after all, I think I´ll pull through”. I´m still not finished, but I´ve gotten enough details in  for it to be great to return to and finish.

Oh, and what is that funky white shape, you say? It´s the sunlight coming in through my window.  So if nothing else, this painting is at least sun-kissed! That´s bound to be a blessing, right?!

She wanted to make a calender-book, and managed to pre-paint her whole book (about half a year). She was very pleased with her book And I thoroughly enjoyed her company!

I finally finished painting the pages in my book too, did some other small paint-jobs, and started a small painting on canvas and wood. When I saw this frame in the shop, I immediately thought I´d let the motif float off the canvas and onto the frame. The house is a boathouse from Austevoll, an island just north of here.

The finished painting is 21 x 21 cm including the wooden frame.

I like the effect of painting over the edges of the frame And I´m quite pleased with the tranlucense (?) of the sea too.

The beginning, sketching on wood:

Adding the red background, and the first layer of washed out blues, all in acrylics.

More layers.

Even more layers and starting with the details.

And then finishing it with final details. The picture is 28 x 80 cm.

Here are the pictures I made for this ship. First the lounge:

A picture of the ship going to and from America (probably New York) at Skoltegrunnskaien.

Queuing to get onboard.

… and on the lounge-walls:

Pictures for the mess:

This picture is from Skoltegrunnskaien in 1926, when Polar-hero Amundsen visited Bergen.

At the end of the 19th century, people buying fish at the fish-market (Fisketorget).

Three men sorting the fish for shipping. Probably for sale in Norway, but maybe export to Spain.

Haakonshallen seen from the Rosenkrantz tower, with Skoltegrunnskaien in the background.

… and on the walls in the mess:

For the smoker´s lounge we have two pictures:

One of my favorite is this portrait of a young boy at Fisketorget in 1911.

This fisher is mending his net while his wife is watching.

Isn´t it funny how he looks like just an ordinary bloke who could be working onboard this ship?

For the Captain´s loung a couple of stairs up, we have these  pictures, with titles inspired by a traditional, patriotic children´s song from Bergen:

The next three pictures are given titles from a local patriotic Bergen song:

“Eg ve te Bergen, ve te Bergen med det samme!”

(I want to go to Bergen, go to Bergen straight away!)

“Der har eg det som fisken i vannet…”

(There I am like the fish in the water)

“Vått og kaldt og breiflabb overalt!”

(Wet and cold and Lophius piscatorius (“sea-devils”) everywhere!)

…and on the lounge-walls:

And speaking of the Captain, here is his cabin:

This is Statsraad Lehmkul, one of Norway´s proud tall-ships.

This is the chief´s picture, Skoltegrunnskaien seen from Nordnes.

The chief is also hard at work.

Here is the conference room:

The pictures have an embroidered text, part of an ode to the west-coast of Norway.

Where the beaten and battered driftwood turns into saalty silver treasures

- on these shores my memory gathers pleasures

Where the entangled light of dawn belong

- this is where my faith grew strong

Where the ancient slopes of naked rock patiently listens to the seagulls wailing

– this is where my soul is sailing

Where the bare rock-faces whisper secrets in your ear

– this is where the dusks are crisp and clear.

On the very top of the ship you´ll find the sky-lounge. Here are the birds of freedom decorating on of the walls:

And finally, two last pictures in one of the stairs:

Here seen with my handy-man helper today: Per.

The original old sepia photos from Skoltegrunnskaien are from Billedsamlingen at the Universitety in Bergen, who kindly gave me permission to re-work them. Photos by O. Schumann-Olsen, K. Knutsen and Ralph Wilson, and a couple of unknown photographers. All other photos, pictures and designs are by Spindelmaker.

Next, I found some silk-fabric cut-offs.

And a big pan of boiling water. I let the avocado-peel boil for about an hour on their own first, since my peel was dried. Then I added the silks.

Let it simmer for 3-4 hours, and leave it in the pot over night. (It looks lovely here, but I think the light might be playing tricks with us)

Hang to dry. And voilá!

They were supposed to turn pink, but I think they are more of a champagne-color. A bit lighter than I expected, but that might have to do with the quality. I only used silks, but should perhaps have tried with linen, cotton and rayon too, to see if there´d be any difference.

For the color to stay put you need to add chemicals use for plant-dying, like alum and soda.

Here is one end of the picture, not finished yet. The sails are looking pretty good, but the boats themselves aren´t really… well, they aren´t at all yet, are they…

I am using the same technique as on the other sailboat I just painted, with a red wash, and then layer upon layer with other colors.

What is the English word for a sailboat-race, by the way? Regatta?

Oh no, I just finished my audio-crime-book, and the library is closed! Does anyone know if there are any audio-books on Spotify, besides the old tapes of Dick Tracy, the Bible, golf-technique and white noise for babies? What do I search for?