Took a weekend studio break last weekend to tour the southeastern coast of Iceland with my friends Aegir and Linda from Reykjavik. Amazing that we got anywhere as we stopped every 30 meters for another fabulous photo op. Aegir won taking over 1000 photos in 2 days! We saw the ash from the eruption of the impossible to pronounce Eyjafjallajokul and brought some back to draw with...so far just grit to me. Miles of moss covered lava 10" thick that takes 100 years to grow back if you snitch some. standing on it feels like a trampoline.
Giant waterfalls that you can walk behind or climb to the top of.
Old houses and barns built into the mountainside.
Skogasandur with black beaches and cliffs of crystalline formations one more spectacular than the last.
And Glacier Lagoon at Jokolsarlon at the base of Vatnajokull, the largest glacier in Europe covering 12,000 sq. killometers. The blue ice with black and white stripes, blue green water and chunks breaking off and heading down to the Atlantic where the waves crash over them is like watching the beginning of the planet...this is a "young" island. The lagoon and the ice formations are never the same and you can sit there for hours absorbing the beauty and peace of the place. Of course you can also take a raft trip, a glacier climbing trip or an amphibian boat trip around the lagoon which gives you a sense of the scale of the icebergs but sitting was perfect for me. The lagoon is 250 meters deep in places so you are literally seeing just the tip of the bergs.
And this is just one of Icelands scenic wonder areas...like India it would take multiple trips tomsee it all. Now back to my lovely studio with view in the barn.