Summer 2014

Summers almost gone

The fields  lie plowed in darkened brown purple.

Pia Ranslet
Plowed field
Oil on Paper

 I painted much this summer. 

Had to concentrate on Landscapes but the heart wanted to continue with 

the 14 portraits, that I have worked on for 2 years now. 

Some still need much work to get right.

 I make some quick self portraits in between so I wont loose the touch.

Pia Ranslet
Me  

 I try to find something new in the landscape, 

some angle that I never painted before.

The Harvest perhaps?

I sit out when  the blue night fall and paint the big machines that hurry to bring the 

harvest in house before the rains will start.

The air is thick........ it's just before the rains brake.

There is a vague smell of diesel in the air.

The evening is not quit tonight!

The sky is so heavy blue as if  the whole sea entered it

hanging over us and threatening to burst.

The harvester make so much dust, I never noticed the amount of dust before.

Opaque grey yellow in the day time  and  bluish grey in the night,

 the light is caught and reflected  in every grain,

It looks like a ghost .

Pia Ranslet
Hurry, rain will fall.

Acrylics on Canvas 2014

Pia Ranslet
The pink glow in the Foxtail grass 

Pia Ranslet
Moonlight

Pia Ranslet
Summers pastels

I love the period when the wheat is bluish. 

The meadows are full of foxtail grass 

and rust red-pink acid grows high above.

Pia Ranslet
Deer in my garden

Had to put up a wire, so they don't eat my rosebuds!

Pia Ranslet
Deer nest

Pia Ranslet
Blessings of an Apple tree

Pia Ranslet
Land shifts in layers

It came out pale in the Internet. The colors are much more strong .

And shadows are purple not blue on my picture! 

I guess my camera is compensating for the missing light, when it's raining outside.

Have seen before that the camera can't reproduce the real color harmony

Specially purples and reds are wrong!

Pia Ranslet
Evening glow over Vang

When it rains I drink much tea!

Weeks of rain now, seas of tea inside 

me.

Pia Ranslet
Sipping tea...... it's still raining

Thinking of my grandmothers teacups!
They were black and pale blue- almost turquoise inside.

Sketches for a painting that I never painted.

Pia Ranslet
Sketch of  a  dying  friend .
Pencil on paper

Have so many really old sketches to pictures,

 I thought of making, but put aside again and forgot about.

Either they got too pathetic or really idiotic or too nostalgic .

 Here I got more interested in drawing the cloth than making a  good portrait.

Pia Ranslet
Study for painting of dying friend
Pencil on paper

Tried a new version from the other side.

Pia Ranslet
Sketch to
"Death of friend"
Watercolor

Pia Ranslet
Sketch to "Death of a friend"
Watercolor

Pia Ranslet
Sketch to "Death of a friend"

Then it got really ridiculous 

when it looked like he was making some kind of Egyptian dance!

I dismissed the idea of making that picture at all.

Pia Ranslet
Drawing pencil on paper with a few highlight in chalk

Tried one more time making him sit instead ,
but the scull got too small without the jawbone
And after a few more attempts  I put it all in a drawer
where it has been lying for 30 years.  

Houses around the World

Hi 

Long time has gone since I last posted anything. 

 I have been busy painting and not looking out for my two blogs.

I dug up under the groundwall.
Lots to repair  So the rats can't get into the house.
Had to drive 3 times to get Sand and Cement.

The last time in my families summer house was used mostly for repairs ,

gardening and visits. Not painting as much as I had planned.

The garden looked like a jungle .

If the grass is not cut every week, it can grow up to 1,30 m when left alone.

 Then the cutter can't deal with it. My oldest son helped with the lane this year.
 I  had a problem with "murder snails".
Tried soap, cutting them with a scissor , trowing boiling water on them,
but nothing helped, new kept sliding their way in.
They ate my roses and crawled in through the open windows!
The dead snails attract the living, who eat them and everything else they find.
So leaving the dead snails on the lane just invited more.
I therefor collected the living ones in a bucket and threw boiling water or salt on .
And carried the bucket with it's stinking content into the woods.
Next day there was again around 40 new snails per square meter.

Every day for two months I spend one hour morning and evening removing snails.
A whole bucket a day! A Sisyfos work !
But the ones who are clever say it the only way to fight them!

Maria Björklund my dearest friend came over.
We spend the time good.
Painting ,sewing ,reading, discussing, watching movies
Cooking Turkish and Persian food.........
Discussing our next big painting project  and
repairing our Ottoman  costumes

Pia Ranslet
Maria sewing wearing a Bedouin dress
Acrylics on canvas
Sketch

Maria is a great inspiration.

Her garden in the South of Sweden is Paradise itself. 

Like a wild English garden with thousands of roses in all colors.

Maria has always been extremely generous
and of cause she dug up half her Rose garden and brought it to me.

 I hope the deer family in my garden and the winter won't finish them !

One of the daily visitors
Taken before the lane was cut with the Clipper.

Thought I'll show some of my old pictures and sketches with houses on.
The farm Bukkegaard where I lived as a teenager
 was from 1500 or 1600 according to old maps.
 We only found prof o f later times on a wooden balk in the house
that had the year 1730 cut into it.
The farm was very beautiful and kept perfect  by my parents.
Every year in the spring  it was painted!
White chalk for the walls and black tar for the ground wall
and some thin black varnish for the cross wood.
We grew a big kitchen garden with Strawberries
Currants and lots of vegetables!
And we kept one field for our horses.
The rest of the fields were rented to a neighbor Farmer.
My parents both artists had each  huge workshops
and used one barn  for exhibition of our Artworks.



I used to sit up on the tallest chimney on my father's workshop and paint the landscape
that spread out underneath towards the sea.
But I also painted our farm.

Pia Ranslet
Bukkegaard
Oil on Canvas

Too lazy to finish painting the roof tiles.

Pia Ranslet
The passage on Bukkegaard
Watercolors on paper

Pia Ranslet
Bukkegaard in spring
Watercolor on Paper

Pia Ranslet
The Passage
Sunset on Bukkegaard
Oil on Canvas

Pia Ranslet
Bukkegard in Autumn
Drawing

Pia Ranslet
The passage on Bukkegaard
Watercolor on Paper

Pia Ranslet
Bukkegaard  with the Passage in the summer
Watercolor on Paper

Pia Ranslet
Bukkegaard trough the Port opening
Watercolor on handmade paper

Pia Ranslet
Farms after the rain.
Acrylics on Canvas

Pia Ranslet
Aakirkeby in the summertime
Oil on Canvas

And then to Kashmir in India

Pia Ranslet
The green balcony in Srinagar
Watercolor on Paper

And another picture in same direction painted from the balcony of my hotel
The mechanic workshop was owned by Sikhs.
They were so kind and smiling.

Pia Ranslet
Mechanic workshop in Srinagar India
Watercolor on Paper

Then a trip to Nepal
Where I and my travel companion Bjarne were invited
by the chief Budhist Katmandu  to stay
on a very remote Monastery Kagang close to the border of Tibet.
It took 6 days walking to get up there in 4000 meters height.

Pia Ranslet
The Bakang Monastery in Nepal
Watercolor on paper

Pia Ranslet
The Bakang Monastery
Watercolor on paper

Back to India

Pia Ranslet
Laundry in Rajasthan
Watercolor on Paper

And then to Jerusalem.

Pia Ranslet
The Latrun Monastery
Watercolor on Paper

Latrun is a beautiful Monastery  lying in the Hills on the way to Jerusalem.
I spent some time painting there.
It's a monastery for Trappist Monks ,we also have a monastery on Bornholm.



And from one of many trips to Florence in Italy.

Pia Ranslet
Ponte Vechio Firenze
Pencil on paper

Pia Ranslet
San Miniato
Firenze
Watercolor on Paper

This beautiful Church I visited many times.I could sit alone in peace on the graveyard and paint .
It had the most marvelous view of Florence.
And was only a short walk from the Villa Belvedere ,
that back then had very nice sculptures exhibited..