Luosto Lapland

Luosto, Lapland, North Finland

Night Trees I gouache on paper 20x15 cm

Night Trees II gouache on paper 20x15 cm

Pitkijanka gouache on paper 15x20 cm

Pitkijanka pencil on paper 11 x 15 cm

Itikkari Trees, night gouache on paper 15x20 cm

Kitinen river watercolour on paper 15 x 42 cm

Kitinen river trees gouache on paper 15x20 cm

Kitinen bend and sun pencil on paper 11 x 30 cm

Kitinen river pencil on paper 11 x 30 cm

Lillies, Joppa pencil on paper 15 x 32 cm

Up stream pencil on paper 11 x 15 cm

Suvento Huts III pencil on paper 11 x 15 cm

This was a brief trip to Luosto Lapland, within the Arctic Circle to organise some landscape painting courses in Lapland for 2008.

First impressions were of endless low lying forest - green everywhere. Whilst there I discovered a rich wilderness subject matter, something I'd been looking for for a while. A flip side to Venice and Sicily. More linked with my forays up into the Highlands of Scotland but slight and subtle. A wide fell land of green forests, low mountains and rivers. All coloured by the phenomenon of the midnight sun. At first when I visited it was grey rain and the day just stretched into night and out the other end with no change, quite disorientating. Then the weather broke and there were two days of bright arctic sunlight. The long twilights through the night were strange and captivating.

This experience went on to inform the body of work The Sun as Fragment.

Suvento watercolour on paper 15 x 42 cm

Lillies, Joppa watercolour on paper 15 x 42 cm

Suvento Huts / Hill pencil on paper 11 x 15 cm

Suvento Huts II pencil on paper 11 x 15 cm

Suvento Huts I pencil on paper 11 x 15 cm

Midnight tree pencil on paper 15x10 cm

Kitinen river trees pencil on paper 11 x 15 cm