I'm posting some pictures of two tables that my neighbours were going to throw out. I'm really very pleased with the results. The one with the pines and mimosas is in my livingroom now and the one with the palette, brushes, and paint jars is serving as a table in my studio. I've also included the cricket bat I painted with a Yorkshire scene.

One of the really fun things about having this blog is that you get responses from people out there somewhere. I got an email today from a fellow in Paris who really liked my painting with the Mimosa branch in the Pastis 51 bottle. He's from Paris and collects Pastis 51 stuff as well as having a website devoted to it. We had a lot of fun during our winter in the south of France going to flea markets and picking up pastis water bottles, ice buckets, and even a set of playing cards from Ricard. Pastis is just perfect to drink in the south of France...somehow it's not quite the same back home. The picture isn't too clear but you'll get the idea.


Pastis memorabilia

This is a study I did for painting a Yorkshire scene on a cricket bat I bought quite a while ago in a second hand store. I was quite pleased with the way the cricket bat turned out. I'll post a picture when I get my film developed. I tried to include a border collie but it didn't quite work.


Yorkshire Dales with drystone fences and sheep

Last summer when we were in Vancouver we took a couple of free walking tours given by the Architectural Institute of B.C. They offer six in total (we did the Chinatown and West End ones). They also give five in Victoria. We really enjoyed them and learn a lot about the city we grew up in. You can get them to send you electronic or snailmail brochures by emailing tours@aibc.bc.ca or check out their web site at tours

Today I'm posting a couple of other paintings I did recently. The first one was on a canvas so I took a (rather bad) picture of it.


Ile de Bendor


Tuscan hills with Cypress trees

I finished a painting from my Chinatown pictures. Just for fun I'm going to post it, the preliminary sketch I did and the three pictures I used.


Fantan Cafe


Sketch for the Fantan Cafe

Photos I used for the painting

My son and I went picture taking in Chinatown last weekend.

I was practicing making links on Monday and one annoying this about the Blogger program is that it won't delete postings you want to delete sometimes for a long time. It may magically disappear one of these days. Anyway, I didn't really want to link people to the Apple Store. I'll try this again. I really love the graphics of vintage posters especially advertisements for travel and drinks. You can take a look at some of these at Art and Posters

I see the Apple Store posting has disappeared now. I think you have to make another posting before it actually will delete the previous.