The Bridge in Deep Dene Park was completed recently as a donation to the OLPA (Olmsted Linear Park Alliance) auction to benefit the restoration and continued maintenance of one of the nations greatest treasures. The Linear Parks designed by the most famous landscape architect to have ever practiced Fredrick Law Olmsted is indeed a triumph of landscape design. Over two miles long and located in Historic Druid Hills in Atlanta it is one of only a few places Olmsted designed in the south including the Biltmore in Asheville, NC. Once neglected and actually slated for destruction by the Georgia Department of Transportation in the 1980's, the parks became a rallying cry for the neighborhood and some 15 years later they have been completely restored and provide the last complete linear park he designed still in existence. Many new amenities have been added over the years all included in the original design but never completed until now which provide bucolic spaces for the public to sit and relax or walk its entire length.

Deep Dene is the easternmost segment of the parks and the only completely natural space. Olmsted in his design wisdom realized that this area was a major drainage catchment and instead of paving around it let it remain natural to provide absorption for run-off. It to this day still functions as designed and has been updated to work even better.

This painting utilizing gauche and watercolor contains over 12 washes and I experimented with a new technique to create the woodland effect. A few more tries and I think it'll be a wonderful technique.

Here's a little painting I did a couple of years ago after a visit to Seaside in Florida. For those of you that have never visited Seaside it is the first really good example of New Urbanism planning in the United States and although it's meant to be a relaxing holiday beach retreat it has become a huge tourist attraction. Almost any day you'll find busloads of tourists milling around the place viewing the quite interesting architecture and enjoying the open space and beach.

This little house characterizes the 'beach' style of houses at Seaside. Although it seems strange to have a small tower on a house at the beach it harkens back to the day when sea captains built such a place on their homes so their wives could stand and view the harbour to welcome them back home after a long voyage. Only too often the sea captains would not return so these are sadly referred to as 'the widows peak' in coastal lore.

Stay tuned more paintings to come!

My latest creation. Yes, I know I haven't done a painting in a while but I ran out of subjects and decided that I needed to recharge my batteries before trying another one. When it ceases to be pleasurable stop and wait, it'll get fun again!

And this one was fun! Sequoia was the US Presidential yacht for many years and is well known as the boat on which FDR hosted Churchill. No longer owned by the US, it was sold by President Carter and has had a very interesting life. Restored in the last number of years it is now harbored in downtown Washington as a tourist attraction and rented for special occasions. Built by Trumpy Yachts in 1925, it is considered one of the finest of American yacht designs with its spirited bow and grand salon that hosted JFK's last birthday party.

This painting posed several design and painting challenges. First was getting the yacht in the correct position on the paper to allow for the wonderful sunset. With a burst of sun shining through the yacht seems to glisten in the sun while waiting to dock.

Also, I had a funny experience with the water, which if you've followed my blog you know it's been one of my painting challenges. But this time, I painted it, didn't like it, took a cloth and wiped it all off and voila' I loved the effect. So water, although you're not mastered yet, I'm still working on you.

Another of my European series Village Blau is set in France. You'll notice a primitive look to this. I'm trying as I go along to loosen up and not paint so tightly. This is an attempt to accomplish that. As a person trained in architecture it proves to be more of a task than I ever thought, too many years sitting in front of a computer doing CAD drawings mostly in straight precise lines. To simply do very imprecise drawings is almost anathema to me but I persist!

I just love doing these little studies of Italian scenes. They're two dimensional but have such a wonderful ambience about them. This reminds me so much of a time I long ago visited the isle of Burano in the Venetian Lagoon. We had a wonderful supper in an out of the way little restaurant and while there met a very interesting couple who asked us back to their room for a nightcap on Piazza San Marco. We left the restaurant and boarded our boat home around midnight and went to our new found friends room known as the Verdi Suite and actually was home to Verdi on his frequent visits to Venice. A piece of his original work was framed on the wall as proof.

I tried a number of different approaches to this scene and although a wonderful subject I'm just not there yet dealing with the complexity of this type of painting. But I soldier on and hope the next will get better. I like a lots of things I did with this painting. The sky, little town and to some degree the water I've been struggling with are getting better. But I'm still having a problem getting the boats to actually rest on the water. Should I paint the water-shadows darker? Or should I forget the shadows and concentrate on just the boats? Lots of choices. But slowly I'm learning new techniques and hope to pull them all together at some point into a really good painting.

Did you notice the building in the background is too dark taking the eye away from the subject?