{"id":637667,"date":"2026-08-14T22:57:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T22:57:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/637667\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T22:57:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T22:57:18","slug":"from-snow-to-khareef-she-paints-her-way-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/637667\/","title":{"rendered":"From snow to Khareef, she paints her way home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every winter, as the light fades early over Sweden, Lubica Ritzl packs her watercolours and flies south, to the green, flower-scented city on Dhofar coast she calls her second home.<\/p>\n

It began almost by accident. Over twenty years ago, Lubica and her late husband Antal \u2014 who spent years on Ericsson projects in Riyadh \u2014 heard about winter trips to Oman, curious about a part of the country they had never seen. <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A camel caravan journeys across golden desert dunes. Medium Silk painting<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A cheerful meadow of bluebells, daisies, and cornflowers. Medium Silk painting<\/p>\n

\"Artist<\/p>\n

Artist Lubica Ritzl at work in her home studio<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sounded exciting and tempting to go to the warmth\u201d, she recalls. \u201cIt was really a surprise when we arrived \u2014 what a wonderful place, a paradise on earth!\u201d. A single trip became an annual ritual, drawing them back to an oasis city of bananas and palm trees, its bougainvillea spilling in bright pink cascades among the first sights she reached for her brush to capture.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Artist<\/p>\n

Artist Lubica Ritzl with her vibrant watercolour of purple crocuses<\/p>\n

\"Artwork<\/p>\n

Artwork showing stairs in the garden (Oil Painting)<\/p>\n

\"Autumn<\/p>\n

Autumn still life with a rustic pot, ripe papaya and warm falling leaves<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ask Lubica to describe Salalah and she does it in colour: beige like the sand dunes, turquoise like the water, green because that is simply what Salalah is and a splash of red and pink \u2014 the flowers that first caught her heart, later filling her sketchbooks as cosmos and full-blown roses.<\/p>\n

Her painting began years earlier in Saudi Arabia, where long days called for something to fill them.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Delicate<\/p>\n

Delicate white cherry blossoms on soft spring branches<\/p>\n

\"Fresh<\/p>\n

Fresh red cherries hanging from a leafy branch<\/p>\n

\"Lubica<\/p>\n

Lubica Ritzl with artist Nadia Tognazzo from Milan<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

She found a teacher who had studied silk painting at Konstfack in Sweden, taught herself flower motifs and ran a small studio for women in her situation. Back in Sweden, that grew into oil, acrylic and finally watercolour \u2014 unforgiving but thrilling, she says: \u201cyou can\u2019t make mistakes, but it\u2019s exciting with surprises\u201d. She now teaches at home each spring and autumn, exhibiting every December.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Lubica's<\/p>\n

Lubica’s work of pink wild roses in watercolour<\/p>\n

\"Purple<\/p>\n

Purple crocuses blooming among fresh green grass<\/p>\n

\"Rainy<\/p>\n

Rainy city street with red accents and distant figures<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nature is where Sweden and Salalah meet for Lubica. Scandinavia\u2019s seasonal shifts \u2014 flowers pushing through melting snow, long midnight-sun days \u2014 taught her to look closely at colour, an attention she carries to Dhofar, where the khareef turns the hills around Salalah into a mist-cooled green landscape found nowhere else on the Arabian Peninsula.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Ripe<\/p>\n

Ripe pears on a simple plate, one sliced open<\/p>\n

\"Soft<\/p>\n

Soft pink and deep magenta hollyhocks captured in delicate watercolour washes<\/p>\n

\"Soft<\/p>\n

Soft pink roses in full bloom against lush green leaves<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Salalah\u2019s meaning deepened, rather than faded, after loss. Thirteen years ago, Antal died, following a final family holiday in Salalah with their daughters, sons-in-law and grandchildren \u2014 days she remembers as the most treasured of his life. Returning alone was, she says, the only option she could imagine and she found flowers waiting for her each time she arrived \u2014 a small welcome that has stayed with her since. She wears a silk flower on every visit and at dawn walks the beach picking flowers the way her husband once did. \u201cIt became a ritual for me\u201d, she says. \u201cIt means so much to me\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Three<\/p>\n

Three boats resting quietly on calm, reflective water<\/p>\n

\"Vibrant<\/p>\n

Vibrant pink bougainvillea in full bloom<\/p>\n

\"'Desert<\/p>\n

‘Desert Roses of Dhofar’<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lubica now hopes to bring daughters Christina and Annika; and grandchildren M\u00e5ns, Rasmus and Vera, deeper into the Salalah she has loved across more than 40 years of visiting Oman \u2014 its beaches, wadis and shawarma at Baalbek, her favourite Lebanese restaurant. She still paints on site, giving finished watercolours as gifts to friends made along the coast. \u201cNature has done everything\u201d, she says. \u201cIt\u2019s just painting\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Lubica's<\/p>\n

Lubica’s collection of watercolour still lifes and floral studies with Nadia<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Among the artists who have shaped her technique is Nadia Tognazzo, an Italian watercolourist from Milan who has taught her at retreats in Dalarna, central Sweden. Their sessions centred on flowers, fruit and still life, using a \u2018negative technique\u2019 that plays light against shadow for energy \u2014 demanding, Tognazzo notes, alongside her interest in landscapes and cityscapes.<\/p>\n

For Lubica, that discipline and the flower-filled coast of Dhofar are two halves of one pursuit. \u201cBeauty is in the eye of the beholder\u201d, she says \u2014 between Stockholm and Salalah, two decades proving it, one watercolour and one winter at a time.<\/p>\n

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