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.
We walk by this Church with some frequency. It’s named Adolf Fredriks kyrkogard, it’s a cruciform shape, that is, cross-shaped. I really can’t guess its age, maybe 150 years or much older. Anyway, it has a graveyard on one side and the ground is covered with drifts of early spring flowers. they’re call ‘Glory of the Snow’ here, Chionoxdoxa botanically.
We were walking on Easter Monday in Stockholm and the rose was laying in the cobbled street we were crossing. Easter was over, it had done its job and awaited smashing by traffic. I rescued it. It has dried and I, lacking energy to paint more ambitiously, rendered it. Now it will live a bit longer.
https://www.dailypaintworks.com/fineart/jean-krueger/easter-rose/1060940
This bird, the fieldfare (Turdis pilarus), is a new one to me. We saw it in a Stockholm park. A member of the thrush family and lives in northern Europe according to Wikipedia. It’s about the size of a robin and looks similar plump shape with the same cocky attitude.
Pollards in Sweden, watercolor, 9×12″, 2023. Copyrighted with all rights reserved by Jean Krueger
Ted’s on sabbatical and I’m with him in Sweden, Stockholm mainly, for now. I like it here, clean, civil and non-confrontational. We catch weekly pipe organ concerts, walk a lot, the foods quite flavorful and chocolate’s cheap. It’s seems to be a very cool society. But the climate’s cold…much too cold for me, it’s mid-April and still wearing 4 layers, hat, scarf and gloves.
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.
Buck the Cat times the pounce with precision. Meow.
Cat Descending a Staircase. Meow.
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.
Hearts are susceptible to forces of nature such as tornados. Perhaps they’ll be carried all the way to the stratasphere, eventually fly over China and get shot down! Or maybe they’ll land in your yard, a happier outcome. They’re totally friendly.
Buck the Cat tidies up. Meow.
Sometimes a Heart gets all caught up in everything, looses its way and winds up out of control and in a vortex. It happens all the time. Don’t worry bout it.
Buck the Cat is fastidious. Meow
Grazing cat. Meow.
In Florida, roosters and chickens are feral. That’s where this one lives. They’re only as tames as they need to be and live well in their free range.
Ted and Jean slept here.
Nice place, I could stay another couple weeks but…
We check out tomorrow.
Meow.
Surveillance. Meow.
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.
A cat’s eye view. Meow.
Jean Krueger Fine Art 