My Exhibition at the castle of Bosjökloster

 Today we finished hanging my paintings at the castle of Bosjökloster for my exhibition called ”The voice of flowers” . This beautiful castle in southern Sweden, with it’s park and lake is truly a magnificent place to exhibit my works. The watercolour paintings of flowers in their natural environment were created specially for this exhibition so after several months of work it was great to see them finally in place. The exhibition will be open to the public for the next two months. For more info see: Bosjokloster

Preparing for the annual Open Studios Exhibition (Konstrundan)

We are almost ready hanging pictures in the livingroom, kitchen, hall and stairs. This year we will be open from Friday the 22 April to Sunday the 1st May. It's the thirteenth time we open our house for the public in this Open Studios arrangement which is the largest of it's kind in Sweden. It's a great opportunity to meet art lovers of all kinds and the number of visitors we usually have during these 10 days has grown to between 2500 and 3000, not only from the whole of Sweden but from many other countries.
More info here  http://www.konstrundan.nu/

Preparations for my participation in the Open Studios Expo last year.

Contract

Today I was very happy to be able to sign a contract with Pulsar Productions in Australia giving them the right to produce my two DVDs on license there. Pulsar Productions found me on YouTube and asked if I would be willing to cooperate with them. They produce and sell art instruction DVDs worldwide.
Here's the link to their website www.pulsarproductions.com.au/
More about my DVDs at http://www.elizabethtyler.com

Printing

Spent many hours in my printing workshop in the basement. I have been working with one of my aquatint etchings on copperplate. This one is of a water lily blossoming on the surface of the dark waters of a lake.
After experimenting for some time I ended up printing it in four colours which meant four times through my hand press. The first plate with the marbling effect of the leaves is printed in ultramarine. The same plate is then rolled over with yellow and printed as a relief print. The second plate with the lily is printed in magenta and yellow and lastly the same plate is printed again as a monoprint where I rolled it up with indigo blue and wiped off where the leaves and lily should be.
With this technique it is not possible to make identical prints in any way so, although I have used the same etched copperplates, each print is unique.

Branch in water

I painted this subject "Branch in water" in Turkey.  I was fascinated by the sun-bleached and sandblasted branch balancing steadily in shallow water. The symbolism in it seemed clear but not blatant.
I usually let my paintings hang on the wall to "ripen" for a while before declaring them finished. It took nearly two years before I realised what I needed to do to improve this painting. The rock on the left was actually melted volcanic lava, hence the stripes. Although it adds a dynamic touch to the subject it also distracts the eye. The same thing happens with the turbulent water. In the repainted picture on the right, both the rock and the calm water become part of the background, instead of competing with the branch for attention as they did in the first painting. Now I have declared the painting finished.