Iceland
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@goosehd oh lord, like I need another reason to want to go back to Iceland. What an absolutely amazing country.
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Thanks Dennis for starting this thread. It was rad to meet you in person in Gosport yesterday. I'm stoked to share my time in Iceland through photos.
We spend a little time in Reykjavik upon our arrival. Here is a neat mural we found:
Here we are at Cafe Loki for lunch nearby the mural. Amanda ordered a traditional Icelandic platter consisting of dried fish, smoked trout, Icelandic lamb, fish mash and (unbeknownst to her) fermented shark. Amanda previously dived with sharks and loves the animals as they are often misunderstood. When she double checked the menu and realized her order included shark, she knew she needed to honor the animal and eat it. I made the mistake of smelling the little white cubes (in the ramikn with the Icelandic flag toothpick) before I was considering trying a bite. The shark is fermented up to three months and smells strongly of ammonia. I drew the line there, but Amanda ate all three pieces. She is usually much braver than I am. As with all of the dishes we ordered, it came with delicious Icelandic rye bread she was able to mask and chase it down with. No sharks were wasted this day. At least in our plate.
As we made our way out of the city towards our Airbnb, I was constantly blown away by the majesty of Icelandic nature.
The flora growing on the lava rocks looked out of this world. I felt a bit of culture shock as we arrived, but while we continued away from civilization, I felt an even stronger "nature shock". It was incredibly inspiring, I took many of these photos to use as references for paintings when I get home.
View from of and from our Airbnb:
I will continue to post more photos of our trip and caption them the best I can. I hope y'all enjoy a window into this awesome place. Here are a few more from our first day. We were on zero sleep from the overnight flight so please excuse our worn out mugs.
The other stop we took in Reykjavik was to purchase a lopypesa for each of us. We knew that of course some makers were superior to others, but were clueless where to even start. As with any time we have this dilemma, we resorted to searching on Reddit. All comments then pointed towards the best of the best, known as The Handknitting Association of Iceland. I did not take a photo of the building but I wish I had.Lopypesas are traditional hand knitted sweaters constructed with Icelandic sheep's wool. Where makes them unique is their water resistant properties, making them perfect to wear in the environment in which they came from. Icelanic sheep and their wool have adapted to their wet and snowy habitat to keep warm in the environment.
Nap time, a good place to end this post before it get too long.
Oh, and check out this bird called a rock ptarmigan, a member of the grouse family. They sounded like little trolls or gremlins on the tin roof the the house we were in. They scared the shit out of us at first. It was the clicking, gutteral, Hellish sounds made from these glorious bastards. This one is a male, as indicated by the red coloration by its eye.
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@goosehd wait...Immigrant Song is about Iceland?! I had no idea. That's so rad...I've been a huge fan of Led Zeppelin since I was a kid when my dad introduced them to me. I've heard that song so many times and never made that connection. Amanda says that song is going to be stuck in her head all day now hahaha...
@ARNC I have painted one already while I was there. I wanted to make an "en plein air" watercolor which is simply a referrs to the practice of painting outdoors.
Not my best work by a mile, but I'm glad I made it. The colors have been embellished and lots of the landscape left out. The photo with the landscape was taken at a different time of day. Trees are meticulous to paint!
I made this drawing on the plane over to Gatwick yesterday. I think I'll add color when I get home. Or maybe just more ink.
A simplified abstraction of this image taken of lake Þingvallavatn, which was a short walk from our Airbnb.
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@Mizmazzle oh my I can't imagine that goodness!!!
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I love how many of the homes and buildings there had moss and grasses growing on the rooves. This one was well lit and caught my eye. We were at a gift shop in the middle of nowhere.
This was a view of a mountain/hill right outside of our Airbnb. There were many of these hills in every direction. We were unable to see how tall they were until this day when the fog subsided.
These red rocks were on a path next to the lake. I thought the denim looked neat next to it.
These are Icelandic horses. They are often mistook at ponies but hey are indeed a specific breed of horse native to the country. Icelanders do not like it when you call them ponies. I found a tooth from one of these horses a few miles from these particular horses. I found two actually.
This lighthouse was both eerie and beautiful at the same time. Nobody was around (aside from the horses) and the lighthouse door was locked. There was a loud calling raven that circled around Amanda and I as we walked around the tower. It reminded me of a scene from Alejandro Jodorowsky's Holy Mountain.
I quite like this particular photo from standing on the platform of the lighthouse and want to use it as a reference for a painting.
These are black sand beaches that we visited. I found a good amount of seaglass here! I also found some tumbled ceramic pieces that were really cool looking. Some of the seaglass had words imprinted onto it. We were going to go to the black sand beaches in Game of Thrones, but a group of tourists had to get rescued after a sneaker wave trapped them in a cave. That and it was two hours one way. It turned out there are a lot of beaches with black and in Iceland and we went to two that were closer.
These candies were left for us to try from our Airbnb host. They were delicious and tasted like Kit Kat bars. 10/10 would recommend.
Lastly for this post are images of an Icelandic lake inside of an inactive volcano. It looked much bigger in person...if you look at the people down by the water and across the rim of the volcano you can get a better idea of the scale.
I have more photos and will post again in about a week. Hope you enjoy! I miss this place a lot!
Thank you!!!