The time had come to leave Sundsvall and it is with sadness that we do so.  Our visit with my lovely cousin Kent and his gorgeous family was not nearly long enough and the setting and town so picturesque that I could have stayed a long long time!

TRAVEL AND ART BLOGS

Our travels today take us to Stockholm by train and if you should want to catch up on the travel and art blogs leading up to this point in our recent Europe trip here are the links;  156. ART & FREQUENT FLYER POINTS and 157. Art & Never judge a book by it’s cover and 155 The Art of Packing Light and 164. ART, TOILETS AND TRAVEL

ACRYLIC PAINTING

This acrylic on canvas board painting is of a little red Swedish cottage during the winter months.  It was commissioned by my American Gallery and as chance would have it unbeknownst to me at the time; my cousin Bjorn and his wife Ann live in a setting almost identical to this by a lake in Huddinge.

My cousin Bjorn picked us up from the train station when we arrived and had arranged for us to stay in an apartment with his son Kalle.  I had really been looking forward to seeing Bjorn again, we knew each other as very young, playing together at family celebrations but had lost touch and reconnected through my art website and Facebook.

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MAKING SCULPTURES FOR CHARITY

Bjorn has been especially supportive with my art and my artblogs and I think we have found a few common bonds too.  Bjorn who is a whiz kid in IT with IBM commutes between Sweden and England for work, found that in his spare time he would like to give back and thought to combine that with his love of tinkering in his shed where he was originally carving wooden figures.  So to cut a long story short, Rundellhund.com was born.  Roundaboutdogs is the English translation and it is about making small dog sculptures and placing them into roundabouts across the world for the general public to enjoy.  All dogs are made from recycled materials and all money collected goes back to charity.  If you would like to participate or know a little more about this use link RONDELLHUND.  Also here is a previous art blog that I have written about this Roundaboutdogs – sculptures for charity.  The other thing we had in common was that he is a big kid just like me!  Bjorn is all grown up obviously but acts and looks decades younger than his years, full of life and fun.

Before we settled in to the apartment Bjorn took us on a tour of Huddinge which is where I grew up when I lived in Sweden.  A lot had changed of course but some things stayed the same, my high school looked completely foreign to me until I figured out that I always came to it from the opposite entrance climbing up a hill.

ROUNDABOUTDOG SCULPTURE FACTORY

After all this sightseeing we were taken to the little red cottage, home and also head office to the Roundaboutdogs Factory whereby after meeting Bjorn’s gorgeous wife Anne and afternoon tea we were promptly inducted into the Rondellhund makings ourselves.

THE ART OF FOOD

Then we were treated to a scrumptious smorgasbord of Swedish treats including more kantarell dishes (my favourite mushroom) where we were also joined by Bjorn’s mother Lillian and stepfather Hasse.  Yet again I felt as I was in the bosom of my family right at home even though it was 30 years since I was in Sweden the last time.

Here is a quote I think fits well here by John Ed Pearce;

“Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave, and grow old wanting to get back to.”

Till next time, happy painting and sculpting to you all.

Love Marie xxx

Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE, GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALE and SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES.  Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.

Here is another installment about our recent cruise – if you have just joined me for the first time perhaps you would like to recap with these travel and art blogs “LEAVING SYDNEY HARBOR” and  “CRUISING ON THE PACIFIC JEWEL” and  “ART,LEONARDO DA VINCI AND THE ISLE OF PINES”

THE ART OF THE TOUR

Our day on the Isle of Pines came to a close and we caught the last tender back to the boat, time for a shower followed by cocktails!  Tonight was Pirate Night and hubby fitted right in!  You see he has been “Mr Accident waiting to happen” lately, no need for him to wear a fake eye patch oh no he just went with the complete black/blue/purple swollen eye instead. Courtesy of an innocent game of Ping Pong on the ship, the day before, when he smacked head first into the only protruding object in the immediate vicinity.  Just as I was starting to think mmm.. hubby is doing well, no injuries or illnesses lately!

We enjoyed the night with a fantastic dinner and Pirates of the Pacific show then off to bed looking forward to the morning’s adventure in Mystery Island.

THE ART OF A MYSTERY

Mystery Island is at the southern end of the group of islands known as Vanuatu.  It is picture perfect with sandy beaches, palm trees and coral reefs and crystal clear lagoons offering great snorkeling.  The island was used as a World War ll landing strip for the allied forces which cuts straight through the island from one beach to the other even today.  There are no roads or people living on the island, the locals come from nearby islands to sell their shells and goods and set up stalls for food and drink.  There was even a giant pot for cooking tourists, lol as Cannibalism was actually practiced in Vanuatu as recently as 1969!!   Not that I was scared for my own life but it wouldn’t have surprised me to find hubby having tripped and accidently landed in the pot.

GICLEE PRINT

This painting (acrylic on canvas board) is called “Under the Palm Trees” and is also available as a Giclee print and Mystery Island looked a little like this.  We had been told that the island is very small and only takes 20 minutes to walk around so we decided to just catch a tender whenever we got ready and meet the others on the island.

THE ART OF GETTING LOST

Well bad mistake – the island may have been smallish but the terrain, trees, pathways, beach, reef and stalls, tourists and islanders made it impossible to find each other.  Instead we all wondered around for what seemed hours looking for each other till our legs and feet ached.  At least we got some good exercise done.  The Islanders were warm and welcoming and cute children entertained us with songs raising money for their schools.

Just before it was time to catch the tender back to the ship we finally caught up with the kids who also had wondered around looking for us for most of the day!  Oh well we still had a nice time and back to the ship for cocktails and more food and more cocktails.

Here is a quote that fits well here by a mystery author;

“ONE TEQUILA
TWO TEQUILA
THREE TEQUILA
FLOOR !!!”

Till next time happy painting and sculpting to you all,

Love Marie xxx

Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE, GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALE and SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES.  Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.

My son Kai and his lovely girlfriend Samantha has just left on a week’s holiday to Tasmania, which is an Island approximately 240 km from the mainland separated by Bass Strait.  They will visit Hobart, Launceston and Cradle Mountain among others, and that reminds me of a family holiday that we took a few years ago there as a family.  This acrylic painting called “Life wasn’t meant to be Breezy”  (which sold in Japan) depicts a tiny bit of the “weather” that we came across on our travels.

We as usual had the most marvelous time, spent much of it laughing and the other making ourselves sick on Devon-shire tea and scones which is something they sold in quaint little cafes at what seemed to be around every corner of the Tasmanian forest.  That “one” had to go on a diet when we got home was a given!

THE ART OF THE SWEET TOOTH

In Hobart where we visited the former women’s prison called the “Female Factory” which had been turned into a fudge factory, go figure!  In the 1800s there had been some 12,000 women and children imprisoned there, it later became a “House for imperial lunatics” and a hospital for contagious diseases and a boys reformatory.  With such a history it seems strange that it now produces yummy tasting fudge and truffles and the like.

A SAD DAY

We also visited Port Arthur which was the prison that the hardest of the British and Irish criminals were sent to during the 1800s.  It is situated some 60 km along the coast from Hobart and is Tasmania’s top tourist attraction.  What makes this an even eerier experience is that it is also the place of Australia’s worst mass murder in 1996, when Martin Bryant went berserk and killed 35 women, children and men and wounded another 21 people.   A very tragic and fascinating story that had the whole country holding it’s collective breath for a couple of days.  If you would like to read more about that here is the link on Wikipedia

MORE ARTISTIC INSPIRATIONS

We had a hire car and visited Bicheno where they run nightly Fairy Penguin tours and you can see the little creatures returning from a day out at sea and coming back to their nest at night, so very cute waddling up their burrows.  Another interesting bit was the spectacular iridescent light that was moving and flickering all around in the water, which was some sort of sea lice from what I remember.

On our travels we also went to a brilliant maze made for adults where we ran around and had so much fun and of course there were some Devonshire tea and scones involved as well, lol.  We also visited a seahorse farm which fascinated me, but the rest of the family remembers that as a bit ho hum!  Well you cannot please all the people all the time.

MORE PAINTING IDEAS TO COME

One adventure we all rate as first class was the days spent at Cradle Mountain where we stayed in a cabin and whilst hubby made the dinner, the kids and I were playing detectives in the dark searching by torch light for the Tasmanian Devils which we thought we saw around every bush but never actually found in the wild.  Cradle Mountain is found in the St Clair National park, a mountain of 1,545 meters above the sea level and has a beautiful ruggered terrain and Australia’s deepest lake.  Dove Lake has a boardwalk right around it which makes it an easy 2.45 hour walk that we cut our teeth on, so to speak.

Then we decided to do the Cradle Mountain Summit Bush Walk which is a 5 and a half hours return, why not, this bush walking business is easy isn’t it?  We were warned that the weather could all of a sudden become inclement and snow, but we thought they were going overboard with their warnings as it was a summers day warm with the temperature in the 20’s.  So hubby made us all sandwiches and other delights and we reluctantly took a jacket each and set off on the adventure.

THE ART OF LOOKING SERIOUSLY STUPID

We were cursing the jacket advice as it was boiling hot climbing up huge dolerite boulders like a mountain goats and contemplating leaving them somewhere to pick up later.  Anyway we persevered and finally got to Marions Lookout with a magnificent view over much of northern Tasmania, where we decided to eat our picnic.  We were thoroughly enjoying the scenery and watching some other hikers along the path when suddenly without a warning the weather turned treacherous and an icy cold wind came from nowhere and it started to rain and hail.  What the?  How could this be, we scrambled to take shelter among the rocks and the only thing we could put on our heads were 4 plastic sandwich bags, lol.  All the while the other hikers pulled out very fancy professional hiker’s ultra light pants and jackets from their backpacks, goggles, hats and gloves – whilst we sat shivering behind some rocks like idiots with bread bags on our heads!  My husband even had a little pile of crumbs on his head when he took the bag off!

The temperature must have gotten below zero and we were seriously considering our options when just as suddenly the bad weather past by and turned to spring.  This time we took more notice of all the signs and marked cabins should we need to seek shelter again, and thanked our lucky stars at least we had taken the jackets with us.  All’s well that ends well.

Here is a quote by Patrick Young which fits in here:

“The trouble with weather forecasting is that it’s right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it.”

Till next time happy painting and sculpting to you all or maybe mountain climbing,

Love Marie xxx   (c)

If you enjoyed this travel and Art blog you may also enjoy this one; 155 The Art of Packing Light

Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE, GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALE and SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES.  Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.