We’ve been taking the public ferry to and through the archipelago that surrounds Stockholm. Some of the boats are steamers, lovely old boats with thickly varnished wood and crimson velvet seating, chugging back and forth between the city and the far reaches of the outer islands. The round trip may take 3-4 hours. I wish you were here, you’d love it!
This is somewhere I’ve been before. Come with me. https://www.dailypaintworks.com/buy/auction/1412559
Here’s Buck, painted from one of his archive photos. Oh, how I miss him while we’er in stockholm. I’m emotionally dependent on his omnipresent indifference and I don’t even mind when, out of the blue, he’ll hiss and bite the hand that feeds him (that’s my hand.) He’s not the best cat but he’s my cat and I forgive his miscreant ways. Meow.
This painting shows landscape design in the city, the pollarding of a formal grove of trees. Pollarding involves the removal of tree branches to improve the fullness and shape of new growth that will follow. It’s a labor-intensive, tedious practice centuries old.
While we’re in Sweden, Buck the Cat is on his own vacation with his Wisconsin family. He’s doing well, just in case anyone’s wondering. Anyway, there’s this Cat Cafe here in Stockholm. For $20. and the cost of a coffee one is allowed to go into a room for 55 minutes where there’s 7-9 roaming cats, all available for adoption. The cast changes as thedays roll by. I’ve been there twice, fool that I am. I need a kitty fix occasionally. Mostly I watch them play, cavort, fight, eat and sleep. None seem to be lap cats and patrons are warned not to pick them up. Petting and the ear scratch is allowed. I’m getting the cat models I paint there to continue my Daily Cat series. However, I really miss Buck the Cat and there’s no substitute for him.
This is somewhere I’ve been before. Come with me.
The Black-headed Gull is a species of the northern Europe and Asia. Their plumage changes seasonally, the example shown here being that of the warmer, breeding months. They’re 11-14″ long and are primarily found close to land. They eat everything. The bird show here was encountered while we sat waiting for a train in Stockholm. Their scientific name roughly translates as ‘laughing gull’.
This is a long view of a Stockholm Avenue, bordered by buildings built in the mid to late 19th c. The city is planned to have wide transit corridors that direct train, car, bike, scooter and pedestrian traffic all along the same path, accommodating each mode safely in parallel. The result is lots of wide urban space without buildings encroaching on it and a sense of openness in what is, in fact, an overall densly built environment. There’s an abundance of trees and flowers in these spaces. Lovely.
https://www.dailypaintworks.com/fineart/jean-krueger/valhallawagen-se/1062388
This pair of birds float around the waters that surround Stockholm’s islands. Although they’re Mallards, they look different than the North American birds I’m familiar with. They are longer and sleeker and not as iridescent and squat as American mallards. Their bills seem longer, as well. But they behave the same, swimming in a line with the male in front, dabbling with curly tail feathers to the sky.
KTH, Stockholm, Sweden, watercolor, 5.75×9.25″, 2023, copyrighted with allrights reserved by Jean Krueger
This is a view from the apartments where we stay in Stockholm. It’s in the middle of campus. We’ll be here and about til late June, a decent amount of time to learn about another place.
We spent a few monthes in India in 2017. It’s such a wondeful place. This is a painting of a major mosque complex. I’ve painted the still, dry hotness that baked us in the late spring afternoon.
Ted and Jean slept here.
Nice place, I could stay another couple weeks but…
We check out tomorrow.
It’s a rainy, mid-autumn day in the canyons of New York City, just north of Grand Central Station. It’s a scene that shows the construction of a building whose bones and entrails are on display, awaiting its clothing of cladding and windows. Traffic edges forward hardly noting the disruption of flow, all business, as usual. I love New York.
We have a lot of stuff…too much. We have a storage unit to accommodate all the forgotten memories, boxes packed decades ago, abandoned projects and other extraneous ephemera of the ages. We go there seldom because none of it really matters any more. It’s just that it’s hard to let go so we pay over $1K a year to accommodate it all…it’s craziness and a folly.
Anyway. This painting is of the landscape that surrounds our storage unit. I sometimes go to the locker just to see the scenery. The facility is on a promontory that looks far to the east into Massachusetts, far to the west into the skies of New York. It’s value far exceeds the $1K+ we shell out annually to rent a storage locker.
We’re driving on a Saturday afternoon and it’s starting to snow. It’s winter in New York, scrub trees in the field mowed last fall are a silhouetted filigree against the leaden horizon. It’s not the sort of scene to leave the car to admire. The wind starts to gust.
The setting for this painting is of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. The time of year is winter. I hike a lot when I’m here and was surprised when I saw the Ocatillo I’ve featured in this painting. The cactus was all leafed out and bushy which I don’t remember happening at this elevation til 4-6 weeks later in the growing season. Nonetheless, I admire this species and have painted it before. I’ve included a painting I posted a few years ago to illustrate how intricate and downright lovely it is when its leaves emerge. Hope you like it.
In the desert when the sun has just vanished below the mountains the light shifts in ways revealing colors not seen at any other time. This amazes me. Fact is, color changes all day long and through the night. Our color perceptions are defined by time and space. Yeah, really…..
This painting is of a wondrous scene I encountered while hiking. I was taken by the arabesque forms of cactus and earth. I’ve included a shot the initial layout of of the painting which I used as a guide for the painting’s progression. I’m pleased with this painting and I hope you’ll enjoy it, too.
While in Arizona I try to hike every day. The temperature is still below 70 degrees F. during the day, perfect for walking. I walk in one of the Maricopa County Regional Parks, a wild and varied landscape with lots of rocks, animals and plants. I’m always looking for my next painting when I’m there.
CR 119 Looking Northeast, $1110USD, Casein, 16×20″, 2021.
https://www.dailypaintworks.com/buy/auction/1219127
Cold front meets warm front. Looks like rain.
Jean Krueger Fine Art 