Our family on the Old City Ramparts in Jerusalem
We took a month long trip to Israel and Sweden this summer and I am sharing some highlights from our time in both countries. Our boys joined us for 2 out of the 4 weeks and we 'made tracks' and rarely slept! We visited friends and family in both places and did our own thing without taking scheduled tours and it was exhilarating and exhausting at the same time. Dear friends in Jerusalem allowed us the use of their fabulous apartment while they used our car in California (yes, we missed seeing them) and other long time friends housed us and showed us special places around their villages. In Sweden, we visited my husband's cousins and were pampered daily with lovely outings and fabulous feasts. We spent time there with close friends of his cousin's as well and had a Midsummer weekend at an idyllic cottage on the southern Archipelago on the south east side of Sweden. I didn't have much time for painting as you might have guessed, but have included a few things that I was able to do while there, plus the last painting that I did upon our return. We feel so blessed to have taken this trip after 29 years when we went to these places with our 4 and 7 year old boys! Nothing like longtime ties with people and places that are near and dear.
View of the Old City of Jerusalem from Yemen Moshe
My new painting friend Katherine
My watercolor of the Old City
View of Jerusalem from the south
Value Study in pencil
View for the value study
Men dancing and praying at the Wailing Wall Observant Jews in the Old City
Light show in the Old City of Jerusalem
Tel Aviv Farmer's Market
Old City shadow patterns
Ibex hanging out along the roadside
Gathering of old and new friends in the Negev- the couple 2nd from
the left stood up with us in our wedding 37 years ago
Old and new friends in Tel Aviv-the center girl went to school
with our boys in Fort Bragg and now lives in Tel Aviv with her
husband just to the left
Now onto Sweden and our Midsummer head garlands
My husband's first cousin is 3rd from the left
My husband's first cousin in the center with her family and ours
A typical summer scene on the coast of Sweden
A typical Swedish cottage
Boat harbor where you can see the bridge from Malmo to Copenhagen
in the distance
Lovely scene in the village of Vellinge Sweden, near Malmo
Midsummer flower fields outside of Malmo, Sweden
Bent metal bike rack
Malmo park, complete with windmill and foxglove flowers
Children dress up and 'shoo' the geese for summer tourits
Lovely entry garden in the south of Sweden
Red poppies in full bloom in the village of Vellinge, Sweden
My 9x12 oil painting of the poppies