I’ve now been in Iceland for a week, and I’m well into my first drawing. I also managed to spend some time sightseeing around the city and visiting some of the local tourist hotspots around Reykjavik as well as swimming with the locals at the thermal pools near me. I’m trying to balance work with experiencing Iceland, as there is so much to see and do, and it seems like a waste to spend all my time in the studio as I’m sure there is much to be inspired by just by being outside.
I went on a one day tour, called the Golden Circle, which covers about 300 km looping from Reykjavik into central Iceland and back, and I got to see some of the natural landscape.
It truly is a beautiful country of beautiful people. I was taken aback by one woman who works at the local hotel bar as her skin was milky white, almost translucent, and her hair was the whitest of blonds – she really did look like an elf princess with her light blue eyes. Actually, for those of you who grew up in the 80s, she reminded me of Jen from The Dark Crystal come to life…. There is definitely something magical about this country, where people believe in Huldufólk (hidden people), who are elves essentially.
Traveling through the landscape, I was reminded of the Lord of the Rings films, which were originally going to be filmed here but because they were not able to bring their horses into the country, for fear of disease to the Icelandic horses, they filmed in New Zealand instead.
Apparently, J.R.R. Tolkien drew inspiration from Iceland and its sagas when he was writing Lord of the Rings, which makes perfect sense when you see the landscape and hear the folk tales of the people here.
I’ve been creating some fun little animated gifs, which I’ve posted to my Tumblr blog. Here’s a quick example that shows Strokkur erupting:
With so much to see and do here, it’s hard to stay in the studio, but I’m managing to get work done despite all the distractions. Or to paraphrase a friend, what are distractions to others is inspiration to artists. I think that’s a much more positive attitude to have.