Stay tuned more paintings to come!

My latest creation. Yes, I know I haven't done a painting in a while but I ran out of subjects and decided that I needed to recharge my batteries before trying another one. When it ceases to be pleasurable stop and wait, it'll get fun again!

And this one was fun! Sequoia was the US Presidential yacht for many years and is well known as the boat on which FDR hosted Churchill. No longer owned by the US, it was sold by President Carter and has had a very interesting life. Restored in the last number of years it is now harbored in downtown Washington as a tourist attraction and rented for special occasions. Built by Trumpy Yachts in 1925, it is considered one of the finest of American yacht designs with its spirited bow and grand salon that hosted JFK's last birthday party.

This painting posed several design and painting challenges. First was getting the yacht in the correct position on the paper to allow for the wonderful sunset. With a burst of sun shining through the yacht seems to glisten in the sun while waiting to dock.

Also, I had a funny experience with the water, which if you've followed my blog you know it's been one of my painting challenges. But this time, I painted it, didn't like it, took a cloth and wiped it all off and voila' I loved the effect. So water, although you're not mastered yet, I'm still working on you.

Another of my European series Village Blau is set in France. You'll notice a primitive look to this. I'm trying as I go along to loosen up and not paint so tightly. This is an attempt to accomplish that. As a person trained in architecture it proves to be more of a task than I ever thought, too many years sitting in front of a computer doing CAD drawings mostly in straight precise lines. To simply do very imprecise drawings is almost anathema to me but I persist!

I just love doing these little studies of Italian scenes. They're two dimensional but have such a wonderful ambience about them. This reminds me so much of a time I long ago visited the isle of Burano in the Venetian Lagoon. We had a wonderful supper in an out of the way little restaurant and while there met a very interesting couple who asked us back to their room for a nightcap on Piazza San Marco. We left the restaurant and boarded our boat home around midnight and went to our new found friends room known as the Verdi Suite and actually was home to Verdi on his frequent visits to Venice. A piece of his original work was framed on the wall as proof.

I tried a number of different approaches to this scene and although a wonderful subject I'm just not there yet dealing with the complexity of this type of painting. But I soldier on and hope the next will get better. I like a lots of things I did with this painting. The sky, little town and to some degree the water I've been struggling with are getting better. But I'm still having a problem getting the boats to actually rest on the water. Should I paint the water-shadows darker? Or should I forget the shadows and concentrate on just the boats? Lots of choices. But slowly I'm learning new techniques and hope to pull them all together at some point into a really good painting.

Did you notice the building in the background is too dark taking the eye away from the subject?

This painting is for those of you who've been out on the open ocean. It is truly one of those experiences that offers insight into how to deal with life. Your entire existence is locked into a small space and every single element in that space must perform or your life is literally on the line. Here we have a crew of three having that experience. I dedicate this painting to a close friend soon to complete a 10 day cruise across the Atlantic.

Since I grew up in a maritime coastal city the sea has became a part of me at an early age. I've spent many a day bobbing on a surfboard staring at the horizon and wondering what was just over it. The horizon allows the brain to decompress, expand beyond the tangible and imagine.
The sailboat, or any boat for that matter, allows you to actually travel across the time/space horizon and explore. After all, isn't that the American spirit?

This painting challenged me in several ways. I wanted the deep blues of the open ocean and I think I've achieved that. But how to show the huge waves that one encounters on the ocean? My next painting challenge!

I choose this painting to do because I've been complaining about better understanding how to paint values. It's a fine example of using extremely dark colors to provide a contrast to the wonderful tower in the background. I even put just a hint of three people in the alleyway behind.

This is an exercise from a really fun website called Watercolorpainting.com. The 'class' shows how to do this painting step by step and it's fun to utilize other painter's techniques to see if you can indeed do it. I learn something every time I've done an exercise and this one is no different. Actually, it turned out to be a rough copy of the original and for those who've tried to copy someone else's work you know its almost impossible to do. Not even the original painter can make a similar copy twice in a row. So I added my embellishments and changed a few things to make it easier to understand which makes it my own creation.

*For those interested the blue highlighted area is linked to the website.

You know in the winter it can get pretty drab with all the rain, snow, clouds and wind and I choose this photograph on a day that was both rainy and cold. You can certainly tell where my head was can't you?

Painting palm trees is a something new for me. I don't think I effectively painted this one but I did get the shadow right! Maybe next time I should concentrate on the tree instead of the shadow. But that brings me to the subject of getting the values correct in a painting. Those of you who've followed this blog know I've been struggling with this issue almost from the beginning. One of my followers, Krys Pettit, watercolorist extraordinaire, recently commented that as I move further along in my knowledge of watercolor I'll realize that value contrast is the name of the game. This painting proves that completely.

Standing back from this painting I realize that the shadow value makes such a big difference here. Also the color of the sky. I should have gone back and re-glazed the sky one more time to get a darker hue. Just not enough contrast between it and the ocean. I like the feel of the painting. At least it gives me a 'warm' feeling especially on those cold days!

Actually I think this painting came out pretty well considering it was probably the most difficult project I've done so far. I tried twice to get the dimensions on the barn correct and 'finally' I think the length and depth are in the correct ratio.

Whitford's barn is located on Cuba Lake at Cuba, NY. I'll bet you didn't know Cuba was actually in NY did you? What are they famous for? Cuba Cheese which is some of the finest domestic cheese in the country and while there we bought a chunk of 15 year-old aged cheddar. I promise some of the finest you'll ever taste.

This barn is an old one and I don't really know what style you would call it. Mr. Whitford has done an extensive preservation of it and I think its one of the most beautiful barns I've ever photographed. See the photo below of it.

Lots of good things in this painting and lots of not so good. I'll leave it to the viewer this time to tell me what they think and what I should do to improve.

Everyone has a 'camp' in Upstate NY it seems. Camp is often a confusing term often meaning a tent, sometimes a trailer, often a very crude cabin but most likely a very comfortable place to wile away the hours. Most often used in winter for a place to base a hunting group camps are as much a part of the landscape in the NE as 'beach houses' are in the southern part of the US.

This road leads to the 'camp' in Belmont, NY and is bordered along its length with birches, oaks and sugar maples and you can see a panoply of beautiful wildflowers during three months of the year. My recent painting of the aster was taken along the road.

My painting is an attempt to give you the feel that you're traveling through a cathedral of nature. You'll notice that I painted the limbs above the road to give the viewer that feel.

I think I overworked this painting and it should have been simpler in execution. Painting a forest is a complicated and confusing thing to do, limbs, vines and shrubs all converge and confuse the painter. I suffered from some of this and after I was done I stood back and looked at the limb structures and realized they didn't make logical sense. A limb follows a very logical sequence on the tree and in some cases mine didn't.

I do like the feel of the painting and look forward to trying another forest painting in the future.
I think as painters we're looking for more complex paintings to try and I find I'm not quite up to speed yet to attempt some of these but I give them a shot anyway!

Here's one I'm a little more proud of. This old barn located near Angelica, NY has been sitting here looking at me for many years. I really never noticed it and frankly it was probably a working farm when I first saw it almost 7 years ago. But winters are tough in Angelica and they'll take an old barn like this down quickly.

I loosened up on this painting, didn't overwork it and I think it turned out fine. I used some of Tony Couch's methods and they do make it easier if you follow him closely. I've yet to master the wet on wet technique he uses but this one had a few spots in it that lent themselves to experimentation, the barn and roof for instance.

Blera, Italy a wonderful little out-of-the way Italian town some 1 hour north of Rome is situated right in the middle of the Etruscan countryside. Blera is surrounded on three sides by river canyons and literally thousands of Etruscan tombs are burrowed into the hillsides of the canyon walls. The business of grave robbing must have started here, with over 7,000 tombs robbed over the 2,000+ years since the Etruscans disappeared into the haze of time.

Blera remains a quiet agricultural based economy and in the evening the farmers and townsmen gather at the ancient overlook in the main piazza for discussion and an occasional drink together. The rhythm of the seasons drives the lifestyle but alas like many of the small Italian towns Blera is mostly populated by older citizens with children drifting off to larger cities.

My intention with this painting is to feature the town on the hill. I'll leave it up to you if I succeeded. The painting has the same problems that have cropped up in past attempts and I'm beginning to appreciate how difficult it is to get those deep colors needed in watercolor paintings sometimes. It's hard to see how dark your values will remain since when wet they appear two to three times darker than when dry.

Here's a departure for me, a still life. This is officially the first one I've ever done and I enjoyed it. Taken from a photograph on my recent trip it displays a native aster. The wildflowers were in full bloom in western NY during September and were truly a sight to behold. Goldenrod, asters, purple loosestrife, chicory, lots of seeds and native grasses all in full bloom/plume. Quite a riot of color heading into the drab winter months.

I learned a few things with this painting. 1. The background is difficult to decide and paint. Do you simplify it like I did here or do you place all the little nuances of the background into it? 2. How do you paint the flower itself? Single or in multiple blooms. 3. How do you compose the painting? I consciously tried to create balance with this painting by leaving a large unpainted space on the right. 4. How detailed should it be? I've almost painted this in a Japanese style, very simple, not confused.

My next project? An Italian landscape.

The Alton Sylor Memorial Bridge over Joney Gorge in Angelica, NY is one of the modern wonders of this area. Constructed in the last several years the span is completely built of wood with its beams some 10' thick. I often wonder why DOTs around the US seem to ignore the majesty of bridges and give us the same old concrete Interstate Highway bridges ad nauseum. As you can see in the photo below it's a beautiful thing.

Here's my painting and I'm beginning, and I say just beginning, to understand water and how to paint it. With this painting I see a number of things I'd like to change and elements I simply missed. For instance, my placement of the rocks in the foreground doesn't exactly tell the story of the river and the rock shelfing that happens in this stretch. Also, I'm working on my values, the darkness and lightness, here too much is of the same value so I'll need to continue work on that.

I hope you enjoy this one, it took me awhile just to draw it, lots of details I just didn't see in the original photograph. Which reminds me that painting definitely improves your ability to see what's around you and appreciate the details.

What do you think? Is it a fair representation of the scene? What could I have done better?

OK everyone, as I promised here are a few of the photos I took on my trip to western NY over the last week. Which would you like for me to paint? Put them in order and maybe I'll do them all!

Here's a painting I did early on in 2006 after a short trip to Seaside, FL.

Don't give up if you haven't seen a recent painting yet! I'll be back on line in a couple of days. I'm going to put a few of the photo's I've taken on my trip and get everyone to vote on which one's I should paint first.

Here's the painting for today, taken off a mountain in western NY, near the small village of Belmont. Western NY looks much like the mountain areas of northern Georgia except the fall comes much earlier. As of late September this area has already had two frosts and the maples are already starting to turn. It won't be long before the maple syrup gathers begin to reap their sugary harvest and make their wares.

This painting was done above a small pond seen in the foreground. Off in the distance are two mountains I painted in different shades of blue. In retrospect I got a little too creative with this painting and needed to de-emphasize the background and concentrate on the foreground more. If you look at my previous painting, English Countryside you can see a better developed scene than this one. My next attempt will be one of the wonderful old barns that seem to be disappearing into dust in this part of NY once the part of the dairy capital of America. The Erie Canal was built in part to transport dairy products from the area but due to modern farming economics most farming is gone and the entire western part of NY is reverting to wind farms and forests. Even the people are leaving.

I painted this several years ago and although this isn't the best scan of the painting it gives you a good feel of a typical beachhouse located on almost any beach on the east coast of the US.

I'm still on the road and will give you a few of my paintings soon. I've completely one mountain scene which I'll quickly post.

The Chatauqua Institute on Chatauqua Lake in western NY state is one of the true gems of Americana. Not only does it contain a vast array of classic Victorian architecture but it also retains its relevancy with a complete summer series of contemporary lectures, music, art and recreational opportunities. Truly one of the great places of America and still available to anyone who ventures there.

I'll be on hiatus for the next couple of weeks although I will attempt to paint while on the road. I'll drop a few paintings on the blog that I did several years ago in the meantime and thanks everyone for following, you'll see a series of interesting paintings from a special place in America when I get back.

I completed this original today another in the series featuring Chester, Nova Scotia Raceweek. As I've noted several times before, I'm working on understanding how to paint water. This painting gets me a little closer to mastering it. Although it looks blotchy in this scan, the original actually reflects a better grasp of how to do water. I'm working on reflections in the water and I'll soon have that mastered too I hope.

This painting is 11" x 16" a size that allowed me to detail the sailboat accurately. You can see that I've placed all the lines correctly and the rigging is also correct. I need help with sketching the people on board and will also tackle that as I move along.

With kudos to Perspective-Depth and Distance by Geoff Kersey I painted this today as an exercise from his book. Although the colors don't exactly duplicate the original painting this is a fair approximation and you can see this painting is also in pretty loose form. This is the largest painting I've done so far 16" x 20" and took approximately two hours to complete, so I'm definitely getting faster and a by-product of that is a much more fluid painting.

This painting has a number of perspective elements that give it depth. You'll notice first the road going off in the distance and then looking up the small houses sitting out in the field. Much further back is a range of mountains which I painted too dark. They should recede into the distance getting lighter as the go back but you can see that tonally the are similar. The other element I missed was the small lake in the background that is too dark also. Notice it looks much more like a cloud reflected on the landscape instead of a lake.

The sky's are getting better. I used a small kleenex to dab the clouds out of the wet paint and I think these look more realistic than some of my earlier attempts.

I haven't painted much in three days so here you have my best attempt at a lovely English Landscape.

I've mentioned in previous postings that I did watercolors several years ago and put it down until recently. Just so you can see the type of paintings I did in 2007 I've included this painting of a photograph I took in Italy. I actually cheated on this one because if you'll notice it has tiny white flowers on the vine on the wall. Since watercolor doesn't come in white I used gauche to put in the flowers. This is a very common technique and although the gauche is technically a watercolor it doesn't have the luminosity of watercolor and is most often used to touch up a small detail.

This little painting is really a study in how paint flows and how to let it do its thing without much control. Although the painting looks like I've planned it somewhat, and I did sketch it, it's really more of a free form painting. The only part that really required any detail was the ocean area which if you'll notice in the background I've allowed to 'splash' up on the rocks.

My plan is to do lots of little paintings like this to test out different techniques, little studies really. I enjoy just playing around and seeing what will come if it. So...............for the weekend I'll do more of these and work on the larger painting you'll see in a couple of days.

Exercise two from the Alexander Brothers, French Farm finds me loosening up and actually painting without the worry of thinking 'do I have just the right colors'? Instead, I utilized the colors already mixed on my palette and let them flow. You can see the reds and blues in the field in the foreground and that I've utilized the exact palette of the sky with a little green thrown in.

I find this a much more satisfying style of painting and one that allows the paints to do whatever they like, mixing with themselves, spreading to places on the paper without control of the painter. This style of watercolor reflects the true magic of the medium and to some extent makes it more difficult to paint but much more fun.

I hope you see the similarity but a difference in this painting vs The Windmill of Holland below. That painting was much more precise in its placement of color than French Farm. I think I'll lean towards the looser style of painting as I move through my learning process and hopefully enjoy the painting process even more.

This painting inspired by a friend's recent journey to Alaska was an attempt to paint both water and mountains. Interestingly the mountains covered by a form of water (snow) were much easier to paint than I thought. But again the water on the lower portion of the painting posed greater difficulty.

So, what does a painter do if he's caught doing the same thing over and over and can't seem to bust out of the loop? Find help! So today I had lunch with my friend Christopher Sherry, an accomplished Atlanta artist friend and appealed for help. He's taught painting classes around the metro Atlanta area for a number of years and is recognized as a very talented teacher. So he's agreed to help me develop techniques that will steer me in the right direction. It should be an interesting learning opportunity and I'll certainly appreciate the critique. You'll hopefully see my art improve with his help.

Let me give credit to the Alexander Brother's book Step by Step Watercolor Painting for this first painting exercise. It's a rather bold step for me and the dark colors of this painting add to its drama and Old Master appearance.

One of the important concepts of this exercise is the use of washes prior to adding detail. As you can easily see here I washed the entire surface with a heavy mixture of raw sienna followed later by overwash of burnt sienna in the lower section. The treeline was painted with a mixture of blue and red with a touch of olive mixed in at a few points. The stream itself was first washed lightly with raw sienna and later defined with a burnt sienna overwash.

The sky in the painting was supposed to provide a dramatic backdrop to the scene and be luminescent. I played with the sky in several different ways but I was not satisfied with the linear look of the clouds they are much too long and narrow without true cloud-like definition. With some work I think the clouds could be a much more satisfying and dramatic.

I altered the composition of this painting somewhat from the practice exercise and I'm afraid I misplaced an important element; the stream. The exercise painting had the stream coming from the lower right pointing towards the windmill. Instead I placed it below the windmill and it loses its significance in the painting. It is supposed to lead the eye but instead overweighs the painting on the left side. But those are all important parts of the intellectual exercise of understanding and effectively producing an outstanding painting. Like the old saying goes 'painting is 90% planning and 10% execution'!

I painted this for those of you who have ever been to The Grange on Cumberland Island. Truly one of the magnificent places on earth, Cumberland is chock full of subtle landscapes, from ancient live oaks to pastoral wide marshes. On the island all the colors seem to fade into olive tones and blend together in a mass of restful vistas.

As simple as this painting appeared to me when I first started it I had not analyzed its difficult parts and come to some understanding of both color use and how to paint the water. In the original photograph I was struck by the stark outline of the bench and its reflection on the dock. So painting it seemed to be rather easy. But I struggled with the water. Could I make it jet black like it showed in the original photo? How would the shadow of the trees in the background be painted if the water was black? How did I show the reflection of the clouds in the sky in the water and how about the reflection of the marsh on the water surface if it was black?

I played with the water in three ways, unsatisfied I finally ended up with this color scheme. I must admit, it was painted mostly to cover up the 'mistakes' I'd made in the earlier attempts. But overpaint I did and thinking about it I should have started with the dark water to begin with.

The background was first painted and then later overwashed with a shadow. If you notice the trees on the left side are dark while the tree mass in the distance remains lighter in color. Elements in the distance always appear lighter. Notice on Kristen Racing below how the trees in the background are lighter.

How about the composition of this painting? In retrospect I would have done two things 1. made the small creek in the distance larger creating a sense of mystery 2. realized that wooden docks sitting in the sun are bleached grey, not brown and the shadow of the bench is a more prominent element in the drawing. Also, I'd work on that water again, I'm still not satisfied!

I'm like a lot of painters who just loves doors and windows. Maybe it's my background in architecture or the idea that they provide some kind of opening to another place and time. However you look at them European windows in particular are often colorful and include beautiful flowers and bright colors. I was struck by this photograph of a window with blue shutters. Not only is it a traditional Italian scene but one that offers a different color scheme.

I don't often see the color blue in Italy. Most of the colors tend towards warm yellows, ochres and sienna's, especially in Tuscany. So some with blue shutters caught my eye.

I've painted a number of these scenes in the past and one of the elements I've always had trouble with is painting pots. I guess its my lack of experience with still-life painting where the study of tonal differences is so important. But I've continued to paint them and these are getting better. I'm beginning to understand how to paint curved surfaces and the effect of light on them especially light and shadow. If you notice the pot in the lower right hand corner reflects light and shadow and gives the viewer a better approximation of a pot.

The shadow on the window is also an important element in this painting, notice the depth of view it gives and how it evokes the surrounding buildings. Those are the little things I'm learning as I go along and you'll hopefully notice as I become a much better painter.

GLOOMS of the live-oaks, beautiful-braided and woven
With intricate shades of the vines that myriad-cloven
Clamber the forks of the multiform boughs,—
Emerald twilights,—
Virginal shy lights,
Wrought of the leaves to allure to the whisper of vows,
When lovers pace timidly down through the green colonnades
Of the dim sweet woods, of the dear dark woods,
Of the heavenly woods and glades,
That run to the radiant marginal sand-beach within
The wide sea-marshes of Glynn

Thus begins the poem The Marshes of Glynn written by Sidney Lanier under the 'boughs' of this tree in Brunswick, Georgia. Still standing it is a lone survivor of adjacent highway projects and shopping centers and no longer is there a small creek adjacent long since filled and paved over. But stand it does and my painting today is taken from a photograph done in the early 1900's not long after the poem was written.

This is a subject I intend to paint many times again. Capturing a live oak (and you see I've tried painting two shown here on my blog) is an interesting exercise. Trying to understand how a tree often 300-500 years old must be painted is really about trying to fathom time. How do you effectively paint time? How do you show the impacts of time on the trunk, limbs and form of the tree? How did the environment affect its form and how can I show that?

The tree in this painting shows the pruning effect of wind blowing from the ocean across the vast salt marsh shown on the left. Painting it made me realize that underneath the canopy almost no light emerges, the trunk seems black when in reality it's a warm grey color. Ephemeral Spanish moss hangs from the branches and small Resurrection Ferns capture what little light is left from atop each branch. Yet below you see a vast panoply of native plants from the titi bush to waxmyrtles and Red Bay trees. And of course the vast salt marsh with its olive green color fading to a rich golden brown in winter.

A pleasant little stroll down a lane leads to this wonderful little scene. What a quaint small town, but this isn't Italy! This image is in Barcelona, Spain and was inspired by a small painting I own.

I often don't really 'look' at what I'm sketching and don't notice the subtleties of the the scene. What are the shapes of the different elements and do those shapes create a single form? As you can see in this painting the actual buildings themselves are multileveled, pointed, square and angled. Not having a single contiguous form adds interest. This is the second painting I've done lately that features a spire, an obvious focal point which catches the eye and brings the eye down into the painting. You'll notice here that I've actually sketched the tower to reach outside the painting 'box' and pierce the sky above.

Light affects the elements in this painting and you can see again that shadows are both long and short , darker and lighter depending on where they are in the scene. Colors here are muted other than the tower which I painted darker to give it an even more striking appearance. And the sunlit courtyard below adds the element of mystery and leads the mind to explore the painting.

Here's a little ditty I did yesterday from a photo taken from a Facebook page. I'm always looking at attractive images to paint and this one caught my eye. Italy is known for it's small intimate spaces. Being a landscape architect by training I'm always looking at space and how it's formed in the landscape and what mystery the original designer has achieved. This space makes me want to 1. go sit on the patio on the intermediate level for a glass of wine and 2. explore the lower space to see what mysteries abound.

I sketched this very slowly utilizing lots of mechanical tools to make sure the roof and building angles were correct. This is a quite complex series of spaces and just one angle being misdrawn would confuse the viewer. So I was careful and the sketch actually took almost twice as long to draw as it did to paint. From start to finish the entire painting took almost 5 hours, much too long. I'll be continuing to time myself to see if I'm getting faster. But since I just found the image in the morning and started work on it around noon, with planning it went pretty fast.

I will tout a friend's book now in the writing stage. It will focus on the best places to paint in Italy so keep an eye out for it in the future. Not only will it give specific towns, but the best places to paint in each small charming town including the finest views and where to set up your easel and paint. Recommended hotels, restaurants and transportation tips will be included.

Pardon me for concentrating on Italy with many of my drawings but for landscapes it simply can't be beat. Compared to my earlier painting from just two days ago I think this an improvement.

Here's a painting I'm much happier with than yesterday's. I tried a number of new techniques which helped. Notice that it's a very stylized painting, much like the sport of sailboat racing. After having such a difficult time painting water I simplified the water in this image and instead of trying to put waves I simply left the wake as white space behind each boat.

I used masking fluid to screen out the white space of the sails and give them the crisp outside leach line that sails have. By utilizing masking fluid I was able to go back and place the batten pockets in the correct location on each sail and also show the correct rigging configuration. All the tiny details of a boat as Tony Couch teaches 'have to be in-scale and realistic'.

This painting is almost 4 times the size of the other paintings I've been recently done and the additional size allowed me to be more precise with the details. You'll notice that even the white waterline shows on the green boat to the rear.

All in all, I'm much more pleased with this painting and by 'keeping it simple' was able to pull it off with more realism.

Today's painting of a small port in New England was inspired by a painting on the front cover of a recent L.L. Bean catalog and was originally painted by Scott Moore represented by Bayview Galleries.

I must admit, two years ago I would have thrown in the towel and stopped painting about 1/2 the way through this piece. Not only was I frustrated by the complexity of it but also unhappy with so much of what I'd done. Too many obviously mistakes that I almost didn't want to put this up for viewing. But since artists are their own worst critics I elected to bare my soul and go ahead and let you take a look.

Where do I start with an analysis of the faults of this painting? Honestly, it comes down to my poor sketching skills. I was unable to convey from the original painting the 'feel' of the little harbour. If you'll notice closely I've placed the anchored sailboat on the same plane as the dock. The dock in reality is actually behind the sailboat. Sketching prior to painting, I didn't pick up on this obvious mistake and proceeded.

Also, I've been harping on the importance of shadows in my paintings and the ripples on the water in front of the sailboat and at the dock aren't in the same direction. Could I argue that the land mass has changed the air pattern and it's different near the dock? I don't think that argument will work in painting!

Let's chalk this painting up as a 'primitive' and see if I can't learn something and apply it the next time I paint such a scene.

I named this painting for a small town in Italy, San Gimignano, the city of towers. Inspired by a previous painting it was done almost totally in monochrome. There are literally three colors here and spots are 'washed' over several times between drying.

Lets look at the composition of this painting. The spire is the focal point although it could be argued that the tree on the right is the point of focus. Since it's a study of a small town, I would say the spire because it pierces the space of the sky so sharply and balances the strong statement made by the tree.

Again, shadows make the painting, especially the shadow of the tree on the front of the basilica wall. Notice how the shrub mass on the right interrupts the base of the church and directs the eye to the town. Just like the tree which literally points at the spire.

The original artist cleverly composed this painting and I was pleased to be able to render my version with little changes here and there to add drama.

Inspired by British artist Graham Timmons, The Girl in the Red Dress metaphorically addresses my love of coastal scenes. I think you can see from the painting that often white space left unpainted makes the painting sparkle with anticipation. As anyone knows who's lived on or near a beach, standing peering towards the horizon with the wind blowing somehow releases the mind to ponder. Here the strategic placement of the young woman standing watching the horizon begins to transport the viewer to that place within the mind.

A tiny painting often provides just the right avenue for such a scene. I've always loved small intricate little paintings. Not only do they make you get down closely to look at them but in the process you eliminate all peripheral visual input and you enter the scene. That happens when you paint too. I often have to squint to paint little scenes and as one of my professional acquaintances has often told me 'put the one eye on it'.

This little 3" x 5" painting provided me a chance to play with the subtleties of dune reflections. I've always noticed that the shadow parts of sand dunes really appear to be blue. Since its such a almost unnoticeable effect in the field its never dawned on me to use the color to define one. Here I think it worked well.

Lovers Oak, Brunswick, Georgia. The name conjures up a wonderful story. The 900 year old live oak tree was supposedly a place for Indian Lovers to meet and kiss their true love under it's branches. It is thought to date from the 12th century. The tree trunk is 13 feet in diameter, and 3 feet from the ground and branches into multiple limbs measuring 12 to 30 inches in diameter. Once bordered on each side by a trolley line it's now surrounded by asphalt.

Painted at the request of a friend, Lovers Oak still stands as a sentinel of times past in Brunswick and has given me an opportunity to try a new technique. If you'll notice, there is almost no way with a brush to indicate the intricacies of leaves on a tree. You don't want to simply dab paint on one little leaf at a time, not only does it not look natural but watercolor doesn't lend itself to pointillism like oils. So on this painting I used one of the watercolorists favorite tools, a natural sponge. Not only can you dab pigment on the paper quickly but areas of dark and light colors tend to bleed together utilizing a slightly watery mix.

Another technique that I enjoy but rarely use is to flick color on the paper to give the foreground texture. Using a toothbrush I load it down with paint and simply run my finger across the bristles and let the paint fly. You can see the results on the light area at the bottom of the painting.

So what I have learned from this painting? Painting around the tree trunks with the blue sky allows the trunks to pop out from the background and adds to their definition. Also, notice that I didn't paint all of the trunk but let some of the white paper show. Since light often illuminates portions of a tree and there is no such thing as a 'white' watercolor pigment you have to leave that white paper to show those reflections.

My second day and here's the result. If you haven't figured it out yet I do love Italy with all its varied color and historic little piazzas. This image was inspired from a painting I've admired for a number of years and in many ways reminds me of a tiny piazza where some friends live in Blera, Italy.

So what have I learned from this tiny watercolor? That shadows are so important to most paintings. From vast landscapes with drifting cloud shadows to little tight spaces with tightly controlled shadows they almost always require me to study the lighting closely and watch and make sure my shadow directions aren't counterpoised. I've often looked after I've painted and realized that I have the shadows of shutters showing light from the right side of the painting and in another spot I have the light casting shadows in the opposite direction. Not only does it confuse the viewer, but me too! So this painting is really a study in shadows and without them it doesn't work.

I have noticed one little mistake: I didn't shadow the geraniums in the upper left of the painting!

My first watercolor in over two years. Taken from a study in a wonderful little book named Keeping a Watercolor Sketchbook by Brenda Swenson. This painting shows a small hilltop town in Italy served by a bridge across a deep ravine. A common site throughout Tuscany.

So, what in the world did I learn from this painting? Several things; first, the trees to the left are undefined and by layering the paints I created a muddy and unrealistic treescape. Notice the trees on the right which are painted much better. Although this is considered an impressionist painting sometimes shape and form need to be addressed correctly to give the painting a sense of scale. The form of the two evergreen trees on the right gives the viewer that sense of scale.

What about the composition of the painting? Obviously since I borrowed the image the original painter spent time composing the painting so that it balances itself visually. By counterbalancing the white bridge with the dark forest on the right the painting has a pleasing balance.

What is the focal point and secondary focal point? The bridge immediately becomes the focal point of the painting but cleaverly points to the secondary focal point being the small town. The mountains behind touch the sky and give the viewer a realistic feeling of landscape.

What would you do better? I would work on those trees to the left and maybe not paint the sky so dark. I would also paint this on a larger sheet. This painting is approximately 5" x 7", much too small to actually give the bridge the attention to detail it deserves. Otherwise, not a bad first start!