62. Sometimes inspiration just isn't there, sometimes it comes all of a sudden. Strange, isn't it? Just like in real life. This little piece came into being when I heard someone singing - Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye ... that wellknown nursery rhyme, you know.

61. Many an artist stress the importance of light. And so it is, of utmost importance, of course. Who e.g. would like to paint in a dark coal cellar? On the other hand the light by the sea is very sharp indeed, especially if one is used to indoor life of the city. So in this picture, a detail of a water colour from last week - I call it Cool Waters - the light is very bright. The thin blueish strokes is from a colour called Smalt or Dumont's Blue. That helps, I think, to create a feeling of texture and depth.

60. South of the picturesque little town Eksjö in the province Småland there is a manor called Kvarnarp, well known from the charming song about its mayor, Lorentz Munthe, who used to ride on his old horse from Kvarnarp into town, in Swedish "borgmästar Munthe, red på sin brunte...". Somewhat of the atmosphere around this 19th century Swedish mansion is still there, I think, in this water colour, which I painted some years ago in a very traditional style. Click on the image and have a look at the entrance to the house and you will see a lady dressed in white - my great grandmother, Hedda Rothlieb - inviting you to her home.

59. Jesus Christ! This is a fairly small picture (mixed media) which I made some time ago. For some odd reason I haven't shown it before, so this is a sort of world premier! Some people say that the Bible and the holy gospel doesn't inspire artists nowadays, but thats not true. As long as people are interested in one another the relation to God will always be of utmost importance. Marc Chagall, Georges Roualt, Willem De Kooning and Gauguin are some artists which came to my mind in respect to this. The Swedish artist Jörgen Hammar is another one. His interpretations from the Bible are really worth seeing.

58. Lets start the new year with some fresh fruits. Fresh? Well, I painted this watercolour quite some time ago, but they still still look afresh though, I gather. That's a quality that water colours have: the impression of freshness in colours can be preserved over quite a long time!

57. A Happy New Year to you all! Gott nytt år, gott folk!

56. With some water colour pencils and some small pieces of paper I drew a few lines without intentions or any requirements what so ever. These images shows how they came out. I called them etudes (as I play the violin), images of trial and error. These days there are so many requirements on people, hidden or outspoken, which makes creativity suffer. People ought to begin to appreciate mistakes and errors for what they are - beginnings to a change, beginnings of new directions in life.

55. This water color is about 50x70 cms, the image is a variation of a theme, Blue Venice II. My idea was to repeat the forms of the vaults and make them fading, creating a sort of dreamy atmosphere. Well, that was the idea. Obviously it's quite another matter to make an image.

54. Seaside rendevouz - a water colour, 50x70 cms. On a walk by the sea I was struck by the variety of pattern and colour in the landscape.

53. Bits and pieces put together. That's what this is. A sort of collage in other words. Heavenly light I call it and the light in the summertime by the sea could be just like that. Sort o f stunning. One really needs sun-glasses!

52. Hope you have had a nice summer! Just now I'm sitting by the computer with the Bluegrass Country radio (in the US) in the background, singing and banjo picking, well, not me but the radio. Kerstin reading is the name of this water colour with black ink painted with a rough and dry brush.

51. "Farewell, my love!" is about wishing someone farewell, but also about aiming at new horizons. - It's a collage I made from a painting of water colour and black ink.

50. With a bit of water colour and ink on an ordinary copying paper I made a few sketches on the theme Gone with the wind. This one is an interpretation of the Swedish 18th century character Father Movitz, created by by the poet and composer Carl Michael Bellman (1740-1795), entertainer to the court of king Gustaf III as well as to anyone who wished to listen to his songs at the pubs down the streets in the old town of Stockholm. "Early morning pipe" I call this little image, maybe "Early morning drink" would have been a more proper title to this image! Should you wish to listen to some of his melodies, feel free to just pop in to his website www.bellman.net. (only in Swedish though - sorry!)

49. Well, there it ends, the story about cutting the lawn. Maybe an odd end, but never mind, life is odd at times.

Thank you for looking at my pictures so far. I hope you have enjoyed it. They are not for sale, by the way. Well, that could possibly be discussed.

The next image, No 50, is coming within short. It's based on quite a different idea - variations on a theme. So welcome back!

48. - "I bought some oranges on the market today" she said, "well, have one", she continued, "they're so fresh and juicy!" Although I don't fancy oranges that much I just couldn't resist the offer, so I took one, said "thank you so much" and began to peel it slowly, thinking of something completely irrelevant. (A detail of a water colour I made some time ago) .

47. So I sat down by the kitchen table and looked out of the window too. Doggie watered the flag pole, quite unnecessary as it had just started to rain. A nice and mild summer rain. Lovely, I thought, now I don't need to cut the lawn today either! (water colour and black ink on ordinary paper).

46. Whatever opinion one has of that picture, it's anyhow a little piece of traditional rural Sweden, I thought. I shouted Hello! yet another time and went straight on, opened the door to the spacious kitchen. And there she was, sitting by a table looking out through a window, obviously dreaming of something that I didn't have the foggiest. Suddenly she woke up and said: "Oh, you scared me! Can't you say Hello at least! " So I said: "Hello." For a fourth time.

45. There was a narrow path beside the boat houses, through the pine forest and up the hill. There it was, the whiteish mansion that I saw from the seaside. The door was open and I came into an entrance hall. I shouted Hello! a couple of times but nobody answered. Nobody at home, I guessed. There were lots of pictures on the walls, one of them was a colourful photo of a fishermen's village nearby, red wooden houses, built in the traditional Swedish way.

44. "Next to the boatyard" there were some colourful small wooden houses clinging together by a bridge. Obviously they were built in whatever material and whichever paint that was at hand for the moment. That's where the boatowners used to keep there boating gear when they weren't sailing.

43. Up early in the morning, long before anybody else, brought my watercolours, went out to the bridge. A thin layer of light in the atmosphere, complete silence, the birds still asleep, not even a fading wave on the water, just like a mirror. Fixed an image on the paper in a minute. That was it. Suddenly a soft wind came sweeping from the sea, dived into the bay, passed the bridge were I was sitting, the little boat yard and the whiteish mansion nearby, raised along the steep cliffs and shook for a second the red pinetops overlooking the islands, scattered all over this part of the Baltic. And with the wind came the waves and the mirror was gone. I jumped into the clear water, swam a little, went up again, lit my pipe and thought: "A new day".