Walk in the Woods

This painting was done in the woods of North Carolina in the Lakes District (Lake Gaston and Kerr Lake) north of Raleigh. We ran a bed and breakfast there and I loved painting the woods in the area. We used to have art weekends and enjoyed having artists and students as our guests and come for our classes.

English Villages

These two paintings were inspired by our times living in England some years ago where I first fell in love with watercolor. The ewe tree near the Church in the second image is very typical of old Anglican churchyards. Some of these trees are thought to be hundreds of years old.

I often teach how to paint buildings and I recently used these village scenes in my classes on perspective drawing and painting buildings in the landscape.

Abaco Schooner

This is a lovely painting of the Abaco Schooner Kewaitin approaching Hopetown, Elbow Cay, in the Abacos. We spent a lot of time in the Bahamas and this is just one of the many paintings I completed while cruising aboard the Best of Times, a 44 ft sloop. The water approaching Hopetown is very shallow and the tide was unusually high the day I painted Abaco Schooner. I guess Kewaitin was able to get in a little closer to the lighthouse because of it.

Permanently Aground!
“Permanently Aground!” may not appear to be an appropriate title for this painting of our Florida home without a bit of explanation. After many years of running our North Carolina bed and breakfast inn, we decided to pursue a life- long dream of living aboard the Best of Times, a 44-ft sailboat and cruising the islands and the waterways. We spent our summers on the Chesapeake Bay and winters in the Bahamas.

What a life! But life has a way of driving changes as one gets a bit older. After some minor health problems and five hurricanes, we made the very difficult decision to sell the Best of Times. We currently make our home in Viera, Florida and are now “permanently aground.” We love our new house and are really enjoying living in the area.

This is a good example of the home portraits that I paint. I have painted many homes and buildings on commission, but never our own. I guess I was proud to be on "terra firma" after all.