Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! We have had some spectacular sunsets and sunrises now with the sun being so low here in the north. Intense colours that you only get during winter. 

We celebrated New Year's eve out at the summer cottage. Then it was time to close the place for the rest of the winter and take up the boat. The ice had had time to set quite thickly in the small harbour though, so we had to take the boat up on the ice to get it onto land... It is a first time for everything I guess. It looked quite funny seeing a boat being dragged along the ice. Now it is safe in storage until spring comes again.

I have been painting a little with watercolours. Not much, but when the weather was such that you did not want to be outside I sat by the fire and spend an hour or two with a brush in hand. 

A spectacular sunrise at the summer cottage. 

Same sunrise about half an hour later.

One day it was warmer and even rained a little, so I decided to take out my watercolours.

I decided to continue with some small watercolour studies of winter landscapes.

I find painting sunrises and sunsets a little tricky. The colours are so intense that it is difficult to get it to look 'real' and not like some colourful fantasy landscape. So far I have found that if I paint the colours a little more muted than what they actually are, the painting looks better.

This one is my favourite of the three. Maybe because I succeeded in getting the colours in better harmony in this one. 

Then it was time to take up the boat. The ice was too thick to drive through all the way to the shore, so we had to drag the boat along the ice instead to get it onto land...

Almost there. After this, the guy with the boat trailer came and took the boat to its storage place.

Now I am back in my hometown. Yesterday was a stunning day, and after visiting some old friends I came home to this view. I am hoping for a few more sunny days so that I could get some nice photos. 

I wish you a great week everyone, and hopefully a great start on the new year!