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There are things that are very characteristic for a particular city, such as monumental buildings, palaces, parks, towers, churches -- and bridges. This particular bridge spans the canal between the posh part of Stockholm and the large park called Djurgården. The name means something like "the area for deers", with 'djur' being the word for 'deer', but nowadays it means 'animals'. Today the park is the site for several attractions: the outdoor museum and zoo Skansen, the amusement park Gröna Lund, the Nordic Museum (Nordiska museet), and of course the war ship Vasa at Vasamuseet, and the ship is famous for sinking in the harbour just as she commenced her maiden voyage, in the year 1628.

I feel another Useless Fact pushing for attention... : The Scotish island Jura has its name from the same 'deer'. In Swedish we would say 'Djurö', the Deer Island. They produce an excellent single malt on Jura, by the way.

If I take away all the colour from my painting, and then posterize it, you can see the 'bones' of the painting, the constructional principles I used for it. The principle is called Notan, and it deals with the distribution of lights, darks, and the mid values. When preparing for the painting, I don't work with objects (houses, bridge, trees, etc) I strive to find an interesting arrangement of the tonal values and the patterns they form:

The darks anchor the painting to the bottom, top, and the sides of the painting, and they are connected to each other. In the water, the darks lead in to the bridge with a sweeping S-curve. The lightest light is the pillar and the statue at the foot of the bridge, and that is the focal point, or better, the area of interest. Because that is near white, the eye is drawn there.

Click here to see the painting.