Can You Find the Hidden Elves in My Painting?

'Home of the Huldufolk'            18x24                   pastel             ©Karen Margulis
available $450

I've been in an Iceland frame of mind this week. I am preparing for a presentation on my summer adventure to Iceland with Stan Sperlak's Painter's Passport group.  I want to paint some new work for the presentation so I pulled out my plein air field studies from the trip looking for inspiration. This little study caught my fancy. I decided it needed to be large.

plein air study from Iceland 5x7 pastel

This was a larger than life kind of day. The weather was dramatic. The scenery was beyond inspiring. It was windy and cold and we had to work quickly to capture the rapidly changing scene. The mountains appeared then were covered in mist. The mosses and grasses were alive with color. Yes. It needed to be large.

I took out a piece of white Wallis paper and turned on my Walter Mitty soundtrack. I decided to do a dry wash underpainting to cover the white paper. I could have done a watercolor underpainitng but I was impatient to start.

As the painting developed and the music filled me,  I was transported back to Iceland. I was there holding down my Gogh box against the wind. I was wiping the mist from my eyes and stomping my boots to keep warm. And I was painting....the wind, the clouds, the greens. I was there was again.

When I finished the painting I saw them.  The Huldufolk....Hidden folk. The elves and fairies that live in Iceland. They were in my painting and it made me smile.  Can you spot them? Click on the painting to see a larger version. Read more about Huldufolk here.

The block in for the painting. I used pipe insulation to rub it in.