Happy Tuesday!

Good Evening,

In the grand tradition of the British, I will start by talking about the weather. It is miserable. Dull, rainy and snowless. This is not what people expect of Iceland. I'm not sure that I will have a very interesting blog today as nothing very much has happened these past couple of days. Much of it has been taken up with sleeping, walking back and forth between the studio and home and messing around with mono prints - none of which have yet led to any decent layered images. I have been photographing these in monochrome and will hopefully include them in something, not sure what yet. They are all based on what I have seen/am seeing around me, with a bit of artistic licence in the colours.

After my jaunt up the mountain I ached so much the next day and today that I had a full body inspection in the tiny mirror at the house. I found a massive bruise on my leg and back so at least now I understand why I kept hitting pressure points when I was trying to sleep. 

One of the housemates (sounds like Big brother...) decided to leave early and went today. I feel that this may alleviate some tension and enable me to get on with things a little more. It's always difficult when there is any type of conflict. Anyway, tomorrow is another day....

I am really looking forward to working with three students tomorrow who are able to access the artists at nes rather than do other school subjects for one lesson a week. I am working with them for a couple of weeks and am hoping to complete a short light painting project with them. If the weather holds, we can practice in the freezer tomorrow and then go onto the beach next week, armed with home made light sabres. I made one today to practice with , out of some old battery Christmas lights and coloured plastic. It is a truly beautiful thing...

You may mock, but look what it made....

Really looking forward to experimenting and getting the girls to make their own wands, ideally with the lights a bit closer together, then going out onto the beach, or even better, into the snow. 

I had a fabulous trip to the lighthouse up the coast, thanks to Arnar and was able to make some great images. It was a bit like a horror movie for parts of it though as apparently mink and Arctic foxes are rife up there and we found a number of half eaten birds. Bypass the following couple of photos if you're squeamish...

one of around 5 'wings only' remains

one of again, around 5 gored birds

It was very isolated and windy up there - no one around and could have easily been the set for some murder mystery crime thingy. 

I did also make some lovely black and white shiny ones....

The lighthouse at Kalfshamarsvik, near Skagaströnd 

Oh, and the obligatory seal. Very friendly he was too.

On the way we were treated to a waterfall which is not visible from the road. It was so powerful, rushing into the sea. The only way to get a front on shot is to be in a boat as the coastline is inaccessible. It's difficult to get a scale from this, but the image of Amanda and Arnar in the foreground of the image after the waterfall gives an idea.

I am so very tired tonight, so am leaving the studio soon and getting an early night. sorry for the short blog, but I don't want to have too big a gap again.

Night

Love, 

Aly