Resurrection of my blogging activity

 

When I startet my blogging history with "Life is Great" in March 2005, I was among the first bloggers in Norway. 

In the first years I used Norwegian in my texts, but due to the international interests I changed to English in January 2008

(https://arneogtullen.blogspot.com/2008/01/you-are-not-alone.html )

The experience after almost 20 years shows that people all over the world still find my blog at the web.

In addition to blogging, I early joined social media like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. and have had friends and followers all over the world. But my heart has all these years been connected to Blogger and the blogging fellowship  

Now I have closed all my present social media accounts and will return to my blogging activity only. 

Hopefully will the most interesting people among my friends and followers rediscover "Life is Great" and give me feedback and advices during the coming months and probably years.

As a start I wish you all a Happy New Year 2025  

Paintings 2024

During the painting season 2024 (May - August) I have made a lot of paintings which has been sold, given away or stored in the basement.  Some of them I will present in this blogpost and you will find them  almost chronologically.

Starting early May when the temperature at my balcony and my easel was acceptable, this repainted sunset was made. Later overpainted due to the need for a new canvas.

Then I did some experimental portraits

before coming back to my abstract style

Landscapes with no real color or more coloristic expression have been ny most preferred way of making paintings. 

Some examples:

After visiting Anna-Eva Bergmans paintings at the National Museum of Norway I did some paintings according to her style

Paintings from the nature at Sunnmøre are also part of my production:

My birthplace Ålesund has always been one of my favorite motives. So also this year:

At the end of the season these three landscape images found their way to the canvas:

together with this portrait of my wife:

Looking forward to the cold winter has ended and arrival of springtime next year I may give you some blogpost from our daily life. Watch the arneogtullen.blogpost.com and Life is Great and give us feedback.

2023 Paintings

The latest paintings in 2023 are finished. 

I feel that the quality has improved during the summer production, and the feedback from market and friends gives me  great encouragement for further development.

The first photo shows me sitting in front of my easel where I am using a rubber spatel to create the image wanted. All paintings are acrylic on canvas.

Totally I have worked out 16 paintings and here I present some of these with chosen titles.

From winter to springtime

Summer 2023

Autumn is here in August

Self portrait after playing with AI

Ice and fire. Winter is coming.

Explosion

Stormy weather.

Black night 
 

A year with challenges - a new year to come

 My last blogpost was from January 2022, and now the calendar says January 17th 2023

On February 24th last year our lives became totally changed. When Putins armed forces assaulted the neighbor country Ukraine, and continued to terrorize the Ukrainian nation and their common people throughout the months to come, we all understood that Europe would never be the same.

I will not try to analyze why and what could be behind such a cowardly action, and not even how there are ways to go further, but support the Ukrainian people in their heroic fight against a superpower that not are a superpower after all. The knowledge  and skills from Kreml to the battlefield can absolute be questioned but their competence is ZERO because their attitude are as bad as hell.

Hopefully we all will survive and common sense will prevail.  

Putin: STOPP the war.

January 2022 Omicron and Squamous cell carcinoma

 January in Norway is always cross country skiing and an image of my wife ready for a Sunday tour free from the covid Omicron challenges.

However, if not COVID Delta or Omicron, other medical challenges occur. 

For the blogger himself the results of many years sun exposure; Skin Cancer, is a bad result. This time it is Squamous cell carcinoma that have to be removed from the bold head.

Hopefully the surgery will develop well and we will be cleared for  our long stay in Andalucia this spring too.

Waiting for the flight decisions a visit to Bærum Verk, in addition to candy and art, we can present two nice photos from this environment.

Andalusia 2021

 After 18 months in the shadow of COVID19 in Norway we are home. Love to be back in Andalucía and seeing our Spanish friends. The masqurillas are used at oficial places busses taxis shops hotel lobbies and when moving around in crowded areas. The Spanish peoples are very disciplined and Andalucía is a green area with many fully vaccinated persons.

The summer will not end at Costa del Sol and temperatures are between 14 and 25 every day so far in October

Blogging in 2021

 Almost 6 months have past since my last blogpost. Now blogging friends start to ask if something is or has been wrong, and Yes so it is. The social shut-down of Oslo has resulted in a lifestyle that there is no reason to tell you about.

However, Wednesday May 26 2021, Oslo´s social life opened again and Tullen and I could once more take part in the urban lifestyle we have been longing for during the last 7th months

Therefore as a start of describing the year 2021 so far, we share our traditional New Year Photo posing in our sitting room well customized to the dress code for the beginning of 2021.

In January we were not allowed to have visitors in our apartment. Daughter and grandchild had to sit in the hallway with face masks when giving us a short visit-talk. Luckily we ( family in Norway) have all been through this COVID-19 pandemic without any infections. The challenges for our family in UK, has also ended in positive health status.

The winter in Oslo this year has been "light" with low snow volumes down town, but in March heavy snow fell during a night giving this view from our balcony

During Easter I made my first stroll down to Oslo´s Main Street, Karl Johan after 6 months "detained" in our apartment. As seen the street was almost empty with shops, restaurants and hotels all closed.

Our regular restaurant "Tekehtopa" has also been closed so we could not relax under the spring blossom trees as we normally do during this season.

Then it is time for the Pfizer vaccine x 2 and as protected we could be fit for another life. First we could hug our family members and step by step socializing with people we have missed for a lang time.

Norway´s Constitution Day (17.mai) is a milestone during spring in our country and posing with national costumes or school band uniforms are a requirement.

Then, when June arrived together with high sommer temperatures, we got the real opening of our city. We could now relax in front of the parliament building in the sidewalk cafe at Grand Hotel and start to plan for the return to Spain later this year. (if the pandemic has come to an end both here and there)