“It is the warmest day in the last few years” they said in the news, and I was up out on a solo coastal hike in Sweden trying to find my way around unknown terrain, no routes here, just my stubborn melting figure against the burning sun, trying to climb fences and find my way around the coastline up in southern Sweden on what I hope one day will be a hiking route.
I was constantly running out of water and drinking so much that I, for the first time, began to understand the fancy drinking tube systems other people are using.
A few times I scratched down fast drawings in my Moleskine book and here are a few of them:
First one is from the small town I started out from. It used to be a fishing Village, but now rich business people are everywhere and the local market sells mostly expensive gourmet food, while Porches and open BMW cars are parked in front of the small old fishing cottages.
I took a break here on a little harbor cafe’ watching life in around the harbor with Padi Scuba courses, beautiful sailboats and business magazine reading seniors.
Mölle, a small fishing village, Kullaberg, Sweden
I went on from out to the lighthouse and from there walked on – and here are a few more sketches:
I came by the famous wood land-art sculptures at Kullaberg, called Nimis, in the self exclaimed micronation of Ladonia, check them out here: Nimis on Vikipedia.
Detail from the Nimis landart sculpture in Sweden
I went on along the water, great views and a bit tricky walking on loose, large stones, finally I reached this very quiet small village, where I found a cold Coca Cola and all the locals gathered down by the harbor watching the summer play.
Summer play at Arild in Sweden - Fast Moleskine sketch, watercolor and Ink
Walked on while the sun went down and camped at the pebble beach a few hours later, it was dark – but I could hear a lot of sheep and fell asleep untill the sun woke me up very early next morning.
Last sketch is from the next day’s long and hot day hike.
The drawing is from a place where I went through a little coastal forest and got a chance to sit a moment in the shade.
Walking in a small coastal forest, getting closer to ängelholm, my destination
Back on the small island called Bornholm out in the middle of the Baltic Sea.
Right now I am spending four days sketching and hiking on a smal island in the middle of the worlds largest brakish water sea between Russia, Denmark and a few other countries.
Here are a few of my sketches so far… and the little girl is my daughter up in her backpack
Bit of an experiment this – posting from my mobile phone
14 may,2010
Nice and sunny day today, managed to walk a few hours (around 18 km. ) Solo walking in a very nice winter scenery, even though spring is getting closer and temperatures crawling up above freezing.
Here is a boot and my watercolors as I sat down to take a break
Yesterday (3 February 2010) I was out in the snow, sketching with my Moleskine book. Even though it was freezing cold I still managed to get a few sketches down before the water froze on the paper.
I was out there for around 5 hours, doing a few sketches and this little video of my walk:
My Moleskine book in the snow
Sketching snow tracks in the snow
Here are some of the sketches from the walk (approx. 5 hours )
Sketch of a tree
sled riding kids
As I was working I started getting the small ice crystals in the paint, as it can be seen here (vague)
I did a few more:
Woman with her dog
Finally I did this experiment, sketching a guy that passed by me, fast in watercolors to work with the way they froze: (Click on the image to see it large size)
Guy that passed by me, watercolors
Good day out sketching, even though the temperature was around 1-5 degrees Celsius
I especially like the change when the water is not drying up, but freezing – even though it gives a bit of trouble when the papers are put on top of each other (as can be seen in the last one)
Today (21 January 2010) I did a walk with my Moleskine sketchbook and watercolors, to the old Hippie world of Christiania, where the Hippies still try to live according to the dreams they agreed on, almost 40 years ago.
Here are my watercolor sketches from today:
Small hippie shop in Christiania - Copenhagen
By mistake I burned the sketch in the edge, when I tried to dry it on one of the open fires they have on the street
Two guys talking between a couple of large wood sculptures
It was freezing cold, lots of snow on the ground and my hands getting numb, so decided to go inside on a small cafe called “the moon-fisher” for a glas of tea.
The Hippie cafe "moon fisher" at Christiania (Moleskine sketch)
Back outside, I was heading down to the water, starting to sketch the amazing houses at Christiania
Christiania house between the old Copenhagen defense earth walls
Getting all the way down to the water, it was frozen and brave parents where trying to clear the snow from the lake to make a small ice skating area for the kids, while the low winter sun where disapearing behind the city (last watercolor sketch)
Kids ice skating in front of the Christiania houses down to the lake
It have been a cold day, today, but great to be outside and start to experimenting with combining walking with watercolor sketching in my Moleskine sketchbook… again
Today I went out to the airport with my daypack and watercolors to get a bit of practice.
First I hang out a bit at the Starbrucks cafe, an airport is a special place and I kind of enjoy watching people arrive and leave for far away destinations.
I was out to check my gear and do a few sketches, and prepare for longer hikes. So it was just a short hike, to a small fishing village close by, called Dragoer.
With me I had my Moleskine sketchbook and my watercolors, here are the sketches before the rain made me find shelter in a small cafe’ with warm applepie and good tea. Here are the rough sketches from today:
Started out from the Copenhagen Airport
Worked with ink, experimenting with using watercolors with the ink.
Walking along the fence
The beginning was filled with impressions from the large scale of the planes and a lot of noise.
The Oresund Bridge
Ate lunch looking out at the huge bridge, quiet autumn weather, looked like rain, but still dry
Fishing village in front of me
The ferries to Sweden used to leave from out there, but now the bridge is there the ferries have gone
Following a small path along the water
The houses along the water was both beautiful and old, I really liked the next one:
Strange narrow house overlooking the coastline
Went back to pure watercolors for this one, think that is still my favorite way to work…
About this time it started to rain and I went into the village and waited for the paper to dry on a small cafe.
Street in the village
I did the last sketch, when I found a place where I was almost out of the rain.
The sketches today was a bit different as I used more ink than I normally do, nice to get back out and get back to the notebooks
Got out on the trail, under a not all blue sky – (Moelleaa trail, Copenhagen, Denmark) It was late morning and I started to walk by a middle sized lake a few km. across.
This day I was not too happy with my watercolors and I was trying to get into the right mood, forgetting about the results and just focus on painting and remembering to bring my brushes - Kind of “back to the basics”.
So I walked out and sat down on a small wooden boat-bridge, looking for motives. Quite a few small fishes where swimming under the bridge and I decided to have a go at them and got my sketchbook out and started to draw the small blinking dots in the water.
Trying to sketch small fishes under water
It must have been about that time the ducks spotted me, I must have been on their bridge or crossed a line somewhere that in the duck world, meant asking for trouble… or maybe company, soon there where ducks all over, in the water and on the bridge.
The ducks where closing in
In the beginning I was cowardly trying to ignore the ducks and focus on painting the fishes under the water, but soon I had to give up, too many ducks on the top of the water and the fishes where all gone.
I sat there, just looking at the increasing number of ducks. There was a bit of sun and I decided to forget about painting and ducks for a while and stretch out on the warm quit bridge instead. I put my pack behind my head and closed my eyes, listen to the trees and the small waves.
Maybe the ducks saw it as a gesture of surrender… or maybe it inspired them, because around me on the bridge a few ducks followed suit, put their head under their wing and took a nap.
A bit later, when I opened my eyes there where sleeping ducks all around me and it kind of made me smile.
First time I have been taking a nap together with a bunch of ducks – great day.
Went hiking today and a few hours away from home I was ready to start painting, went into my day pack to get my gear out but realized I had forgotten my brushes.
Sat there and wondered what to do.
Found some old charcoal and started drawing instead – haven’t been using that for years but it was kind of fun to get back to it:
Sketch of an old oak - made with charcoal
Fast sketches with charcoal
Finally I decided to give it a try with the watercolors and ink – I found a stick, shaped it with my pocket knife and went on to leaves and finally the ultimate basic… using my fingers
Cows - drawn with sticks, leaves and my fingers
I’m going out again tomorrow, so this time I hope to remember my brushes…
Taking the sea side around some famous cliffs – the video
I am researching a trail here on Stevns, but as the trail went inland, I decided to walk down to the foot of the vertical cliffs, where the Baltic sea meet the light blue flintstone beaches. My goal was to see if I could find an alternative and more exiting way around the cliffs and at the same time get a bit closer to what happened here 65 million years ago, when something really big hit the earth and wiped out around 75 percent of all animal species.
Here on Stevns there are still traces of this event, as a thin layer of almost black Fish clay up on the cliffs. The fish clay here has an extremely high amount of the very, very rare metal Iridium, that is almost only found in outer space or spread around the globe when very large meteors hits Earth. And as the fish clay here can be dated to the exact time the mass extermination took place, many now think that a meteor caused it.
Here is my note of the place and the meteor (Just started experimenting with making these notes and adding them here)
the meteor and Stevns on the map
When I come down to the beach it is around noon, I walk past a few geologists and tourists (the geologist are the ones with the small rock hammers) and head for the far end of the beach, where the cliffs goes right into the water. It is low tide now and I had kind of hoped I would be able to walk around the cliffs without getting wet feet. I decide to take my boots and pants off and see if I can get around the cliffs in the water and maybe even find some fossils on my way.
A few minutes later I am slowly moving forward in the shallow water under the dripping chalk cliffs, trying very hard to keep my balance on the slippery flintstones down at the bottom without getting my backpack all wet. I get a good grip on a flintstone, that is sticking out of the cliff and stop for a minute.
Finding a way around the cliffs
I know that right up there over my head is one of the world’s most famous profs that something went terrible wrong on earth for around 65 million years ago.
Something that was so devastating and dramatic that it wiped out around 75% of all animal species on the planet, including all the Dinosaurs, and more than half of all known plant species when this something turned the Earth subtropical climate into a deadly freezing arctic dessert for an everlasting 5000 years.
It is this change that makes geologists from all over the world swarm to Stevns Clint, because here they can eyewitness and study this event as a thin band of fish clay, that testifies one of the most dramatic events in the Earth’s ancient past.
The experts can’t quite agree, but most of them now think it was an enormous meteor, maybe more than 10 kilometers across, that changed everything in a second, when it hit the earth in Mexico (Yucatan meteor link) and spread an inferno of Iridium, dust, fire, earthquakes and volcanoes all over the planet, that again created a total darkness, killed most of the life on Earth and froze evolution to a dramatic halt, for a few thousand years before a brand new beginning would see the light of the sun. A beginning where the mammals, instead of the dinosaurs would play the main role.
On the beaches here, and in the cliffs are fossils of the life both after and before the dramatic change. Most of them are small, but some years back someone found a tooth from a Mosasaur here, a few kilometers further south.
Mosasaur and the mosasaur tooth found on Stevns
The Mosasaurs were fierce looking sea predators up to 17 meters long and near relatives to the snakes, but the Mosasaurs lived at the times of the Dinosaurs and died out together with them back there 65 million years ago… but they must have been a bit of a sight.
Looking out on the water I appreciate that they are not roaming around here anymore, as I am out of my element here in the Baltic sea, wearing my backpack and feeling my way forward along the loose rocks at the bottom.
Finally I made it around and could walk up on the next flintstone beach, happy, even though I didn’t find any fossiled Mosasaurs.
Here is a video from my mobile of me in the waves trying to get back on land somehow…
