“View in Iceland from the deck of the house.”
An incredible week! Not much time for painting, but an incredible week. We have been on holiday to Iceland for a week, and it exceeded our expectation. Although is supposed to be summer, Iceland is very close to the arctic circle with the capital city, Reykjavik only 2° latitude below it. It is also situated on the 10Celsiu isotherm, which means that the average temperature during the warmest month of the year, July is below 10 Celsius, over most of the country. So, we had a bit of both, some “warm” days, up to around 14 Celsius in sunshine and 5 – 7 Celsius at “night time”. And I am saying “ night time” because this close to the summer solstice there is not an actual night. The sun sets for about three hours, but stays just below horizon, hence instead of dark, is like a very light twilight. On the reverse, in December would be about 5 hours of this twilight instead of proper daylight. Usually is cloudy, windy and quite wet, but the sun comes as well, so we had sun, most of the afternoons for few hours, more or less and we had couple of days without much wind.
We visited some places around, going as far to the southeast as Vik, which is the most southernmost place in Iceland, famous for the black beach, made of volcanic ash and a large colony of puffins, the Iceland national bird, which we haven’t seen any. Close by is a wreck of an abandoned American plane, which crash landed after running out of fuel, but all people escaped unharmed. The spot is in the black beach at Solheimasandur, and is reachable by foot, a hike, about 3.5 Km over the desolated beach. We also managed to see few waterfalls, amongst others, Gulfoss, Skogafoss, Seljalandsfoss, Gjain, Haifoss, the volcanic lake Kerid and the national park Thingvellir, where the two tectonic plates meet and create a rift. And, not to forget the Nesjavellir geothermal power plant , which can’t be visited obviously, but can be viewed from a viewing platform after a long and steep hike. Nesjavellir is the second largest geothermal power in Iceland. And many, many other beautiful places. I almost forgot the Tomatoes Farm at Fridheimar, where they serve a lovely tomato soup and other beautiful tomato based dishes, deserts and beverages; I tried the tomato beer. The restaurant there is quite pricy, but it worth it and is only open from 12 to 4:00 in the afternoon and you would need a booking to find a place. Another fantastic place is Gesyr, which gave the name geyser to hot boiling springs around the world. And to top all this the landscape is striking and it changes every few miles or so, sometimes fields, sometimes volcanic ash, lava fields, hills, some covered in moss, some in bushes and some few with new forests coming to life. And lots of sheep, most of them with two lambs and the famous Icelandic horses, the most robust and resistant horse race.
We stayed in a modern villa in a village, one of those little villages with little lanes paved with a reddish rock powder looking very similar to slag.
The house was set in the middle of a forest, surrounded by a deck and a little sky walk.
So, because of lack of time, I only managed to paint one painting of a view from the deck. I painted it alla prima in couple of evenings. I haven’t used any medium, just some turps and used a reduced palette.
So, here it is:
“View in Iceland from the deck of the house.”
Oil on linen.
20 X 30cm (8” X 12”)
