SEA ADVENTURES

An archipelago, a home island. Next to seventy or eighty volcanoes, above and below the sea.

Once one of those volcanoes started to erupt during night time.

That volcano in sunset.

Between the main island and home island, a little escape island. During summer also about eight million puffins nesting around.

The home island, so pretty, on so dangerous grounds.

But so pretty and calm. Windy too. I like wind. It is a weather that you feel.

Home island.

The blues.

The good-byes.

And the quickly changing weather. Waves.

♥

SOUNDS OF WATER

A little spring trip. Seven years and I haven´t been there. Oh, so beautiful it still was. The sounds of water in its all forms. So much sun, so strong wind, so warm sunshine (hello new freckles!), so perfect when swimming in hot turquoise water while it gently snows. The beautiful language that rolls nicely in mouth, makes to smile.

A second home, so much missed.

And now, it is finally starting to look a bit more green here. Today a small herb garden was planted to the balcony, still thinking of ice, ocean ship travels, mountain tops. 

How are you and the season around you?

Sunset bird songs.

(Some photos also at Instagram.)

DREAMY SUMMER NIGHT VIEWS

The first spring rain, always forgetting how wonderful it smells and feels. How it is soft and silent, a happy one. How it feels to fall asleep with the melody of it. First spring rain, a mood of a kind. A mood for being comforted. 


The sound made me dreaming of the views that I saw from my homes some years ago, in Iceland. The bright summer night light. The open sky. Humming streets. Birch leaves in wind. Landings and taking offs of the domestic aircraft. An old woman with a scarf around her head, collecting all the bottles. Neighbor kid in a tiger mood.


What do you see from your window?


Weekend of biking in spring rain, balcony naps, reading, baking. Eating with friends. Listening to Faroese language. Summer plans with strawberry tastes and lime. Planting herbs.


Never setting sun, it feels almost like it already.


Have a good beginning for the new week!

OTHER HOME

A little bit of adventurous landscapes for this grey Thursday. Paths in wind, in sounds of silence. Homes from the past.

Dreamy greetings!

(Photos from Iceland from 2004 and 2005. It is seven years today that I first time landed in Iceland. What a wonderful journey it became.)

WINDY WIND

Dear all,

The sky and the lake wear the same gray dress today. Wind is collecting the summer greens and hurries them to go hiding. Slowly, but visibly more and more every day. 300 km away from here there were many more yellow leaves during the weekend. Still bicycled with Mum to our summerhouse and swam. A theater play about sea and an island welcomed the earlier dark evenings.

While searching more wool for the colder days, I remembered that I have used wool for other things than clothes too. A small exhibition done in Reykjavík with a small group in 2005. Lovely ladies of handicraft shops gave us bags of small balls of wool. With them we built our own wind with a girl called Nadia. With some red wool I drew a girl so big that she did not completely fit inside. Her hems in the wind. There was a parade outside while we worked. We were locked inside and could only see a bit of the trumpets and drums marching on the street through a window. Later a friend that I had not yet met took a picture of another friend visiting the exhibition. The last picture I found from an old email and it was taken by Þórarinn.

Cold fingers of the autumn are searching their way inside this house. Time to close the balcony door and say bon voyage to the sun traveling further, to the other side. Eager about the new season, the new colors, the new scents and sounds.

Have a calm new week with colors of rowan berries and rose hips (their tastes too).

Hearts, from me to you.

(Third picture by Þórarinn.)

PARTLY CLOUDY

A lighthouse that appeared while the darkness came. A spring storm was arriving and we were stuck in black sand. Just watching the blinks of the lighthouse over the bay of sea.

Hiking in highlands middle of two glaciers. Wondering if those landscapes still exist after the eruption last year. The warmest day of that summer, bare feet on the softest moss. The coldest water of a glacier spring, tasted so good.

Up in the North in sunset going to see birds nesting by the sea. Partly cloudy six years ago in three different places in Iceland, partly cloudy also today.

More calm winds to the other side of the world, please.

P.s. Thank you so much everyone for your precious words in the last post. I will keep the idea about making the patterns into textiles in my mind. Hearts to everyone!

PATHS TO WONDER, TALK, AND SEE, OR TO BE SILENT

Good morning dear all of you,

This morning is very cold. Nose is frozen. Autumn is for walks with a hot cup of coffee or tea in hands. With my dear friend we have done that a lot the last years, in different countries with wonderful views on the way. Cats, birds, trees, ponds, parks, forests, hills, sleeping beaches snoring. Villages, gardens, farms, business streets. Dogs and markets. Always sketchbooks in our bags with some provisions. To walk I could forever.

These pictures are from Reykjavík in 2006. A bright orange coffee house was our living room, hot pots with old men boiling in them like soups in the swimming pools for the evenings or early mornings.

Maybe I am a bit too early with the autumn, it is still August. At least two layers of long sleeves can be finally tried on in the early mornings. The sky is also changing its palette to a bit colder tones.

Have a walk, a long one today!

Hearts,

Anna Emilia

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MISSING YOU

Happy birthday Iceland!

Gleðileg hátíð, gleðileg 17. júni!

Just sending my best greetings to the land of winds and surprises. These pictures were taken during the summer nights in 2005, when the sun never set. Yesterday I remembered how I worked with the elderly and silver-haired people there. One of the ladies was very known palm reader, people traveled to meet her. Once when we were in the kitchen all alone with her, her cup of coffee and milk already cold, she told me: "Hey you, come here!" (Heyrðu! Komdu!). I sat next to her glancing her newspaper, we used to read the news together, she teaching me Icelandic or we talking about her childhood in Denmark or of her known painter father. It was one of those days, when the sky and the sea are the same color and the horizon is difficult to recognize.

Suddenly she took my hand in hers and watched it for a second and started to read my palms. Telling the truth and forecasting the future. I was amazed and happy and even this lady maybe never remembered it afterwards, I knew that we shared a secret. Next year I was there working again. The same happened. "Hey you, come here! But your palm lines have changed from the last time!" she said and told me a few new things, but the deepest ones still remained the same. I am not sure if to believe them or not, but at least it is one of the nicest memories I have to feel a smile on my face.

Thank you once again for your orders in my shop, Apple Blossom Meadow -print is almost sold out, I am in awe!

See you very soon again, have a good Thursday and see all the blue and red and white things around!

LITTLE DISAPPEARANCES OF TUESDAY

Everything is hiding today. The sun behind clouds. The new balcony flowers inside from the cold. Bird songs. The rosa thread I wanted to use for sewing this morning became brown instead. One of the rabbits hid inside a lilac bush this morning. Postman is hiding too, should bring some small news.

Maybe I could hide a bit too. Inside my jacket and a big scarf from the coldness while bicycling to the town to find some bigger painting paper. In a café from home. Inside magazine spreads from the café. Into new lands from the travel magazine spreads.

These images you may have seen earlier in my Flickr. They are from Reykjavík from the summer 2006. The girl living upstairs was hiding inside a tiger gardener. The wind hid in the grass and a small cat was hiding too but had left some small paw steps at least as the first walker on the new concrete.

Where do you like to hide today?

Lunch time, from that I do not want to hide. Bon apetit and Cheers with a tea cup!

Happy May, happy day!

GREEN MEMORIES

Hello mountains,

hello green color!

It is all white in here still, but the streets have melt. At home I found some photos in green. The first image is taken on a rainy road from a car. A magician´s car. He was a very kind one. Only because he never had been in Ísafjörður, he and his friend decided to drive us there. Next morning they had to be gone when we woke up, but then they told that maybe they want to drive us even a bit further. We saw seals bathing in the sun. Late afternoon they continued their journey and we stayed over the night sleeping next to a big waterfall. Next morning we met two travelers who took us to a ferry and then further to a glacier. There we slept another night.

The last two pictures are from Dalvík, "Valley Bay". Up to the mountains I walked many times. There the sounds were so far and soft, long continuous echo of cars and the sea humming together. The wind very straight but not as strong as I thought. Birds singing to show me where to walk, not near to their nests. A small waterfall coming from the glacier hurrying down to the sea.

All the shades of green,

Anna Emilia

WAKING UP FOR THE LIGHT

Spring has arrived even it comes today as big floating snowflakes. Spring makes me restless. Restlessness makes me to want to travel. Healing that with a bit of lighthouses of the world. Lighthouses from Germany, Iceland and UK. (1. by Sabine, 2. by Anke, 6. by Samuele.)

Do you feel the spring? How do you treat it?

Have a happy Monday filled with orange and turquoise, maybe a bit of raspberry pie too!

A LITTLE BIT OF MISSING

It is rainy and +5 °C today in the treasure island Iceland. Quite different it was in the summer of 2005, when I was there the second time. It was very green and an 80-years old gentleman called Halldór was teaching me the names of the mountains around Reykjavík. We sat by a coffee table and looked the landscape opening behind the window. So many mountains fit in one view.

Is there a place that you miss sometimes?

Edit:

P.s. The smell of Reykjavík is of course the wind and the sea, but also vanillin. Very strong vanillin as there is a cookie factory in the middle of the town. Vanillin to my coffee today!