The tower leading up to Cologne Cathedral’s tower is uniquely lit with multiple windows. Here is my take on the view up to the bells.
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This is early morning on the Plaza Mayor in Salamanca, Spain. In a couple hours the Plaza will be full of umbrella tables. But right now the coffee drinkers are inside enjoying the warmth.
These two capitals come from the Nazrid Palaces in The Alhambra of Granada, Spain.
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This is the cathedral in Trujillo, Spain, also known as “Our Lady of Peace.” I’ve painted her from the side, as a neighbor might walk to her. But she presides over Trujillo’s Plaza Mayor.
This is Seville’s Plaza de Espana where Spain held the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929. Seville went all out for this World Fair venue. The plaza is a beautiful mix of Art Deco and Spanish Renaissance Revival, Spanish Baroque Revival and Neo-Mudéjar styles.
This painting has sold, but you can still purchase a fine art print.
The streets of Toledo are shaded by canvas sails and lit by hanging lanterns.
This is old town Caceres.
This painting has sold, but you can still purchase a fine art print.
My husband, daughter, and I spent a pleasant morning walking through the Le Marais district in Paris, on our way to the Pompiduo Modern Art Museum. The Le Marais was once inhabited by the French aristocracy and later become center of the Jewish community in Paris. Post WWII, it is once again inhabited by traditional Jews. I found the Jewish men’s back hats and suits striking against the back drop of more casually dressed tourists.
This painting has sold, but you may still purchase a art print.
This is eating out Amsterdam style. The painting is mostly watercolor with a few pastel accents.
We spent our last day in the Neatherlands in Haarlem. Haarlem is just just under a half hour by train from Amsterdam, but feels like it’s miles away because where Amsterdam is large and lively, Haarlem is small and quiet.
The young women in the foreground were adding more chalk to a square already covered in graffiti. None of it was pictorial and all of it obviously washes off with each night’s rain.
Cesky Krumlov is a magical town of twisting streets, nestled in a river bend. The castle, churches, and residential neighborhoods occupy the hill about town. This is the view is the from the residential neighborhood above the river. The “street” down into town is actually a stairway.
This painting has sold, but you can still purchase a fine art print.
Cesky Krumlov sits in a bend of Vltava River in the Czech Republic. It is a walkers town. And if you walk, you eventually cross the Vltava. All the bridges are charming and walkable.
Buskers with wearing horse-heads and playing the accordion are standard Vienna fare. We heard these three coming to and going from The Leopold. They were loud, enthusiastic and good, playing both traditional folk and a few pop pieces. But mostly they are just visually fun.
—This painting has sold, but you can still purchase a fine art print.
Despite the lack of canals and only a single bicycle, this is Amsterdam on a summer evening. But it could be anyone of a number of European street scenes.
The title is a bit of a pun. I painted the picture from a series of snapshots, and girls in the foreground are sharing a snapshot. I hope the atmospheric nature of the painting has little to do with snapshots.
Another Italian painting, this time of Lucca. The view is from a window in yet a fourth tower. I will have to paint the tower we climbed. The oak trees growing from it’s roof give it a surreal feel.
The glass pyramid as seen through one of the Louvre’s arches.
This is a back “street” in Riomaggiore where the streets are not only likely to be too small for cars, but may include staircases. I loved the light at the end of the tunnel effect and the contract between the brightly painted wall and the natural stone stairs. The woman was both beautiful and big.
This painting has sold, but you can still purchase a fine art print.
Italian Heat is not my first attempt at that painting. It is the second. I made several mistakes with the first painting, most of them having to to with composition. I left too many people from my reference photos in the image, and that took away from the real subject, the biking couple at the end of the street. Having reached the conclusion that the painting was a failure, I played around with photos the spoiled painting before sketching out the second version which ended up in the blog entry below.
That left me with a poor complicated painting with great color but no real focus. So I set the failed painting aside for a while. Then a few weeks later, I got out the mat corners (“L” shaped pieces of mat board used for visual cropping) and singled out the two bicyclists. The result is Florence Bikers.
Looking at the remainder on the contained yet another painting:
Both paintings have sold, but prints are still available. fine art print.
I had a stellar week in the Artisan Village at the Oregon State Fair. I sold seven originals. Three of Riomaggiore on the Italian Med:
Two of Florence:
One of Oxford:
And one of The Valley of the Gods in Utah:
My “problem” now is putting together enough paintings for my feature at Art in the Valley this coming October.
I poured this painting at the Oregon State Fair on yesterday and spent this afternoon finishing up the brushwork. I rather like it. The greens feel very England to me.
This painting has sold, but you may still purchase a fine art print.
Florence is worth visiting just to walk the streets. The twisting turning little alleys are endlessly fascinating. The light pours through in dramatic shafts between the buildings spotlighting slivers of streets and buildings.
This is one of the twin clock tower spires of Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London. I love Saint Paul’s Cathedral though it is nothing like the Gothic Cathedrals I fell in love with on my first trip the England. Unlike England’s early cathedrals, Saint Paul’s was designed by a single man, Sir Christopher Wren and built over just thirty years. The result is a clean coherent building rather unlike the the quirky cathedrals I first admired.
Wren designed and saw built numerous churches in the vicinity to compliment and be complimented by the cathedral. But in the London Blitz practically the entire neighborhood was bombed and burned to the ground. The cathedral is now surrounded by modern offices. The Millennium Bridge now leads directly to it providing a very modern show case for Wren’s jewel.
In our month long odyssey to Europe last year we had only one really long travel day, but it was a dozy. We left London in morning to take the train to Paris. We boarded the train without a hitch and ate lunch as we emerged from the channel tunnel in France. We walked the streets and had dinner in Paris. Then we boarded the night train Milan.
I’ve heard mixed reviews of the night train, but it did well for us. Our cabin mate was a gorgeous young Frenchmen who man managed to be both chivalrous and bashful at the same time. The cabin was spacious and the bunks comfortable. We agreed to an early bedtime and all fell asleep easily. Which is surprising because the trip was tinged with worry because Italy was scheduled for a railway strike, and we intended to go on from Milan to Rome.
So it was with some relief that we arrived in Milan in the wee hours to discover our connection to Rome was still on the board. Relief and time to enjoy the beauty of the modern railway station with the morning sun lighting up the tracks’ exit to the greater world.
I am the March featured artist at Art in the Valley, Corvallis, Oregon. The show will be of my Europe paintings. Reception March 9th, from four to six.
Another painting taken from our trip to Europe last summer. This charming little street is close to Nortre Dame, but at least a little off the beaten path. Like many of the streets in the area, it curves charmingly.
I poured this painting in much the same manner as July in Florence. The process is much like batik and leads to clear color passages that make buildings glow.
Or purchase a fine art print.
Old town Florence streets are shaded lanes so narrow they almost feel like tunnels running at irregular angles to each other. The view at the end of the tunnel is often as not another narrow lane cutting the street off at not quite a right angle. But here there the streets open into plazas with startling sunny views of churches, cathedrals, bridges, train stations and castles. Walking from our apartment, the Duomo complex burst upon us in much the same way–the light at the end of the tunnel.
Another poured watercolor painting, a process much like batik.