Watercolor 296

Decorative, for a card

Watercolor 295

Clusters

St. Lorenz Church in Frankenmuth, MI

Probably several of the regular readers of this blog have seen this church at some time, but I thought I would post a few photos anyway. 

On a recent short trip, we spent a few hours in Frankenmuth, MI.  Using the encyclopedia in my pocket (a smartphone, wonder of wonders), I was able to read aloud the history of the first settlers of that town while we drove.  Our first stop was the church they started, St. Lorenz.

I really enjoyed looking at the stained glass windows.  

The windows showed the history of the town and people involved, along with a few basic Biblical scenes.

We could probably debate the usefulness of church windows depicting local history (as opposed to Bible history) and perhaps it makes the church a bit tourist-y.  I do find it inspiring to contemplate the sufferings and work of those Christian pilgrims and missionaries who came and founded the town in a missionary effort and can't help but appreciate the beautiful depictions.

The altar and chancel area were quite beautiful.

Someone was practicing on the pipe organ while we were in there, so it was nice to hear it.

I asked the kids to think about the meaning of the dove in the domed window of the ceiling.  We had a good little whispered discussion about it.

After this we went on to walk through the town, finding interesting sights and some treats.  Perhaps we will go back soon, and stay longer.

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Sun on Water

This is another of the small postcard - size paintings. 

To all who wrote comments, Thank You!

To Sarah for your most recent post, compliments again on your life drawings. You don’t have to be able to quantify or describe the benefits you gain, as long as you recognize that you have gained. And your offer to help with canning fruit: I might want to take you up on that. Next week is for plums.

Slow Progress on Things

Here are some small drawings I did last month in ink pens, referenced from pics on Google of some of the tourist spots along the Columbia River Gorge:

They were thumbnail sketches/practices for some larger works I was planning on drawing to submit to enter in a gallery show, but never got the time to, and then the deadline was past.

Below is kind of an older drawing from a few weeks ago, too; done from life, but I sketched out the basic placements and proportions in pencil before going at it with the pen, because I knew they'd move. Haha, and boy, did they move more than I thought they would!...so, yeah, not the best likenesses or details. (For one thing, the feet are atrocious...)

It was still really fun to do, though, and I felt like I learned something from the experience, although I could not tell exactly what.

And we are slowly but surely making progress on a picture-frame-painting project:

Besides that, I haven't been doing very much creatively other than increasing the frequency of my silly doodles and marker lettering on Instagram...

:)

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Alaska View

Watercolor 292

Ten Grapes

It is that season again.

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Petunia

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Floral

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Soft Landscape 

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A Stormy Sky Postcard

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Still Life With Cup

Is Baking an Art?

We had a Discussion on this Years Ago

It fills some of our days, anyway. Feeding people is what we do.

 

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Evening

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Little Bird

And just to show that autumn is approaching, here is a local fellow across the road trying to reach some apples. I watch these stags in the Tierpark out my window.

No success, thinking of trying again. He did. Same result.

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White Trees

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Fuchs

No Art

Hello All

This weekend was full of everything but art, including more arranging in new studio.
Pictures sometime. Too many boxes presently.

Since I am not allowed to comment on the individual posts to reply to your comments, I want to do so here.

Thank you to all for comments and compliments.

Pam, I agree we have a sad lack of terrorists and doughnut shops for the our local men in blue.

Katie, those little fruit still-life works would love a dramatic background, but that would require a more complex set up, which would influence the reflected colours, which would be lovely to paint, but those little works are done when I have no time, but decide to paint anyway. So it goes. Maybe eventually I will get to backgrounds. Though I rather like the simplicity, too.

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No masking

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Floral with masking fluid

From this

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A Road in Montenegro

First Son was here yesterday. Seems to be a pretty place.

Carousel

Not a project...
but I was gone on a trip recently, and one of the things I saw that I thought might be of some interest was an old Herschel carousel. It was still working and stuff, and we got to ride on it.

It played music.

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Evening Light in Colorado 

Watercolor 278

One Number Skipped

I don’t like it. So here is a small one I did today. 

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Floral

Numbers of hours went into designs for a military patch for youngest son’s group. I will show some later, when a design is picked (of dozens submitted by many of the soldiers). For now, flowers, postcard size.

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A Landscape

More spring than summer (a copy)

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Another One, for a Painting Lesson