This is a painting of the town of St. Antonin in southern France. I was there on a market day last February with my sister and her husband. Although chilly, it was a beautiful sunny day which made for great patterns of light and shadow. Towns like this sometimes feel almost too quiet, so I enjoy being there on market days. The painting is 24 x 18 inches.

This is a scene in Cordoba, Spain just at dusk. The sky had a warm glow and the streets and buildings were cool and shadowy, but not yet fully dark. Cordoba is between Seville and Granada in the Andalusia region of Spain, and well worth seeing in my opinion. The painting is 24 x 18 inches.

This week I did several paintings using only sepia and white, and did not attempt to include any paint-texture, image detail or soft blending of edges. Painting this way isolates the study of major light and dark shapes, so important for any painting of any subject. I used 9 separate gradations of tone from pure sepia to pure white, though all 9 probably were not used in this painting.

When I paint this way I consider it training and I am not trying to achieve finished work for exhibition...but sometimes a painting will have a charm of its own.

I may start posting more than one painting per week now...I am painting a lot and enjoy putting them here for people to see.

This is the first of what I hope will be a series of posts which I'll call "Painting of the Week". This one was completed yesterday, Jan 3, and is 24" high and 30" wide. It is a scene of a country road in southern France...these roads are very often lined with trees known in the US as Sycamores, in England as Plane Trees and in France as Platanes. I actually started this painting over a year ago and had not worked on it since. I was not satisfied with the color and the edges between shapes but liked the composition, so I added a new layer of paint over everything without changing the design.

I will plan to post a new painting each week when I'm not out on the road somewhere. So, keep checking for new work and let me know what you think.