It is Thursday morning in Bergen, Norway, 1,250 miles from Saint Remy in Provence. I learned a lot from Van Gough in Saint Remy. During our time in Oslo, on the way to Bergen, I was exposed to Edward Munch, the prolific Norwegian painter famous for The Scream.

Here is one more of the Van Gough influenced paintings I did. It is 3×5 inches, painted with gouache.

We changed planes in Helsinki on the way to Oslo.

Oslo was not all that inspiring for my morning sketches, though I did do one of a street sign out the window of a cafe.

On the waterfront in Oslo is the Munch Museum. I was unfamiliar with Munch, actually I did not even know that he was the painter of The Scream. We discovered that he was quite prolific, and just a bit eccentric in some of his art. Our friends bought me a gift from the museum:

This is a quote of Munch’s; I have been pondering it ever since. I realize now that travel and urban sketching, which got me to where I am today as theTravelsketcher, had a limiting effect. The Urban Sketchers Mantra emphasizes sketching on location, and sketching what you see. The result, for me at least, is that I rarely ever just created scenes in my mind – I painted what I saw. Some months ago I began to sketch and paint from images in my mind. Munch’s quote encapsulates the idea so well.

Here is one I did while we were at home for a couple of days before heading to Oslo. One of Tricia’s photos of a stone arch triggered the idea. I used watercolor markers for the intense colors.

While I was contemplating fiords in Oslo, I did this one – watercolor and gouache.

We took the train from Oslo to Bergen. The route climbed to almost 4,000 feet elevation. It was above the tree line, and snow had fallen recently. I saw a red house on a rocky point, and saw many stark mountains, so as the train moved on I painted what I saw – thank you Munch.

These last few weeks have been quite a journey in travel, and of course as it always is for me, a journey in sketching.