Cocoa Village Balconies

This is a painting I did recently for the "Drawing and Painting in Perspective" series of classes. It was drawn from a cropped photo of these charming Cocoa Village balconies. I used it to illustrate how to do perspective drawing from a photo. For such a simple painting, I think it turned out quite nicely.

Rosie's Place

Rosie's Place is a fun little painting I did as a classroom demo in the recent series of Waterscapes and Seascapes classes. The chartreuse door for Rosie's was a whimsical touch I added at the last minute. I hope you enjoy it. Maybe you could send me your version of the "story line" for Rosie's Place. What do you think the guy by the door is doing? Where do you think Rosie's Place is located?

This is a painting of a door in Paris. A walk on Boulevard St. Michel toward the river on the left bank is always fascinating, but I found the doors especially interesting They always seem to hide stories and make one wonder what happened behind all those doors. Most are private ones with double doors that open into a courtyard. But this one caught my eye because of the very modest hotel that caters to the students in the area. In years past, the time I spent in Paris was business related, but we returned there this spring for a vacation. We stayed in a little hotel on the left Bank, Hotel de Mine, across from Luxembourg Gardens. We walked a great deal and took some wonderful photos of the doors and the delightful cafes and bistros in the area.

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.