Bicycling. One of my favorite activities is bicycling. Quick jaunt around the block. Miles down the bike trail. I'll take what I can get. My obsession started at a young age. When my five year old legs became too long for the tricycle my younger sister was anxious to inherit I took to catching a ride on the rack on the back of my older brother or sister's two wheeler. I didn't mind being their passenger around our neighborhood in Madison, as they could pedal farther and faster. The only … [Read more...] about Bicycle Built For Two
Watercolor Painting
First and Last of Italy – Open Air Painting
This was the very first open air painting I did in Italy. I walked about one block up from the Arrioto (block, they don't really have blocks. There's basically one road that runs through town and it may split off and run around a couple central buildings and then merge back together futher along). When I first saw the building I just stared at it for a while. It was just to the right of where the road split away like a Y, so all there was to sit on was the stoop of the building at the center of … [Read more...] about First and Last of Italy – Open Air Painting
Giovanni’s Tower, Italy – Plein Air Watercolor
This is the plein air watercolor "Giovanni's Tower" I was working on when when the young man in the truck pulled up and showed me the pictures on his phone of his artwork. He may have been trying to tell me something of the subject I was painting but I couldn't understand Italian. Alas I did find out the story about it one evening at dinner with the boys when a gentleman from the company the guys were dealing with joined us for dinner at a restaurant in town near the school yard. I was telling … [Read more...] about Giovanni’s Tower, Italy – Plein Air Watercolor
Italy’s beautiful buildings – Open air painting
This open air painting depicts the setting where the old man came out and sat by me and started a conversation. I wish I would have studied some more phrases from my Italian book, I would have liked to ask him if he was a farmer in the town. His face was leathery brown just like another elderly gentlemen whom I saw open a set of green, heavy wooden doors through which he then drove his old red tractor (much like the one my father had), and bounced his way out to a field on the edge of town. Both … [Read more...] about Italy’s beautiful buildings – Open air painting
Church on a Hill in Italy – Plein Air Watercolor
This plein air watercolor is of the church in the center of little Terrugia. The saying 'castle on a hill' makes me think of Italy... only it was a church on a hill that was the stand out point of any city on the horizon. As you drove along the hills and valleys of the countryside anytime you saw a cluster of buildings in the distance it was always set off by the steeple of the local church. Most of the churches that we saw were relatively ornate... especially the ones in the bigger cities. … [Read more...] about Church on a Hill in Italy – Plein Air Watercolor