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| On March 28, 2007, UK artist Pollyanna Pickering and her daughter/manager Anna-Louise Pickering departed for Bhutan sketch and paint the rare flora and fauna of this largely undisturbed region of the Himalayas.
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| Pollyanna Pickering returns to Arctic for Fourth Time! |
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Over Christmas 2014 she undertook a shorter journey – to Swedish Lapland, traveling 290km north of the Arctic Circle to find inspiration in Pollyanna’s forthcoming Summer exhibition will be called To the Ends of The Earth – and in preparation she has visited both the Arctic and Antarctic within the past 12 months. She spent Christmas 2013 painting penguins in the Antarctic, while on a major expedition. the dense forests with their snow-laden trees and the pristine, snow-covered wilderness.
She selected this region because it is the last remaining expanse of true wilderness in northern Europe including stunning forests, crystal clear rivers and spectacular mountains. Heading into the forests in search of wildlife, Pollyanna opted to travel by husky sledge – not only it this a very traditional and environmentally friendly form of travel, but it is the best way to enjoy the serene isolation of the untouched landscape. In fact there are more huskies than people in Swedish Lapland! And of course Pollyanna couldn’t resist sketching huskies themselves…..
The extreme cold did made sketching very difficult – Pollyanna managed to strip down to one pair of thin gloves for a few minutes at a time to work with pencils – but the brief line drawings she made inspired paintings like the canvas above. Pollyanna was accompanied on the journey by her daughter and business partner Anna-Louise – who also acts as official photographer on the expeditions – and she also found it problematic to work in temperatures as low as -32 º. While on the husky dog sledge her eyelashes froze together, making photography very challenging!
However their suffering was rewarded with sightings of wild snowy owls along the frozen river Torne – and another highlight came with a visit to a traditional Sami camp to study and sketch the reindeer. The semi-nomadic lives of the Sami are inextricably linked to the reindeer, and their influence and customs are still much in evidence today. 20,000 Sami live in Swedish Lapland along with 120,000 reindeer. Pollyanna was able to sit in amongst the reindeer herd with her sketchpad – and even feed them with clumps of lichen.
While in Swedish Lapland, Pollyanna and Anna-Louise couldn’t resist spending one night in the famous Icehotel at Jukkasjarvi, sleeping on an ice bed - a large block of illuminated ice with a layer of reindeer skins and a thickly-padded polar sleeping bag – which brought back memories of sleeping in igloos while on expedition with the Inuit in search of polar bears!
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