Shopping by the Lake

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And now, a swerve back to people. This scene is another one from Überlingen, a town next to a huge lake in Germany that I visited last summer. You can see a little sliver of  lake and sky beyond the end of the alley. I thought the colors were really great.

Walking Home in France

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This size/orientation never shows well online, but I like to paint them now and then. Please enlarge to see fully. (Also it looks better in person.)

Meanwhile, I'd like to tell you about a project I've been working on. I got some big, flat Ampersand panels recently, intending to do some larger paintings. I did two before I realized they are too big to store vertically. Which sucks, because I recently built myself a vertical storage rack - doh!!! So I set out to buy a horizontal rack. But the only ones I could find were ridiculously expensive, and wouldn't fit in the space I had for it. So I invented and made myself one. You can see it here, on top of  my vertical rack. I used hemlock to build the frame, and metal shelving for the ... shelving. I also recently built myself another work table, which you can just see the corner of in the photo. I need to make one adjustment to it, and then I will share that as well.

Isuzu Alley

sold. (8x8in.)

Lots to report, so I'll make this quick: alley, Seattle, near Capitial Hill.

Last week I taught my first workshop in 1 1/2 years, which went really well. On Wednesday I remembered why I love teaching - on Wednesday things start to sink in, my kids get really quiet and productive, and they do really great work!

Unfortunately I completely forgot to take pictures, except for these two: the studio set up but empty of people, and two of my kids doing special "art workshop yoga."

TWO of my kids gifted me paintings. One is an abstract by Kristen, and the other is a portrait (of me!) by Piyali. Isn't that awesome?! I guess it puts a lot of pressure on my next group of kids ;) (which is next week, BTW).

And the last image, which I DID remember to take, is our group photo. You guys were awesome!

Escape Door

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One of the reasons I decided to take this year off from teaching, is so I can experiment with my work. I haven't posted everything I've done, because some of it has gone down in flames of ... bad. But one thing I've decided to do is paint from photos I've passed over before, but are in my files nonetheless. This is one of those, from an excursion to Santa Cruz, CA. A simple alley in town, complete with matching bike. It's subdued, but I like this one.

Alley Van

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I have a whole slew of random photos from previous wanderings that I've been sifting through lately, searching for over-looked gems. This is done from one I took in Seattle maybe 10 years ago. I actually did a larger painting from the photo with more of the alley in it, but I think it works better small. There is something very compelling to me about alleys. I can't quite explain it.

Alley Shadows

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THIS one I am really proud of. It's not every day you find a perfect shadow like this, cast on a perfectly wonderful blue building, AND manage to get a good photo of it. This is Germany again - same town as yesterday.