heron by the pond

he caught quite a few fish!

Some studio pictures

These pics show the preparation of the next canvas. The steps involve cutting the canvas to fit the strecher, mounting (stretching) the canvas on the stretcher, priming the canvas with gesso (three coats), and then applying the colored foundation. All in a day's work!

Don't Mess With the Hag-on!

(Don't mess with the Zohan with adam sandler is the poster behind me)

Jeff's birthday bash

We had a great dinner party for our friend Jeff last week. Here's some pictures from that gala event and the week around it.

picture 1 is in front of hofvijver (parliamant)

picture 2 is my reaction upon learning jeff's age

the remaining pics are from the bacchanalian feast and party afterwards....

Interactive sculpture in Rotterdam

Friends from DC came with us to Rotterdam to see some art. We ended up being a bit more interactive with the art than originally planned.

Breakthrough in art

I finished a painting last week, about four feet by four feet. An early title was "cat under a tree" (good one, engineer boy). That title morphed into "Twilight in the garden" which somehow lacked the descriptive clout of the more powerful and final title, "On the hunt." Thanks, Clair Garman for helping me with that input.

The point of this blog entry is to share with my vast group of dedicated readers just how excited I am about this painting. Why? First, it is a huge painting by my standards and thus a departure for me. Second, it was done in one sitting, and has the gesture and immediacy that I want in my painting. It was a fantastic sitting, with my brush going as fast as I could move my hand, arm aching, music blasting, lost in time. Please check out the painting at www.potamoi.com .

Biking in the dunes, looking for the next painting site

Last week, I took a ride through the dunes adjacent to the Hague, looking for the next plein air painting site. The dunes are the natural barrier between the North Sea and the flat farmland/low-lying areas of Holland, providing protection from flooding and the winter storms. The area in which I biked is protected by the Hague's local water authority, and is the regional water supply. Rainfall infiltrates the sand in the dunes, and the resulting aquifer is the city's water supply reservoir, and the sand cleans and filters the water. These pictures are all taken along the beach adjacent to the dunes, and in the protected watershed for the city. The second picture shows a WW2 era bunker along the beach near Scheveningen.

relaxing in the backyard

These pictures are from a sunny Sunday afternoon. We sacked out in the back yard, enjoying the sun, the clouds, and the company of our cat.

Cat Defects

Our defective cat is now Libyan. Shiva took matters into his own paws. After keeping him awake for more than 24 hours using American, fully vetted by Alberto Gonzales, "enhanced interrogation techniques," Shiva defected to the Libyan Embassy, located next door. He showed us his fine cat butt ass, as you can see in the photos. He now insists on being called by his new Muslim name, Meowamar Kataffi. He insists that he is supreme feline leader of the Libyan Arab Jamihiriya Socialist Republic. Now he is bugging us for a pair of new Italian sunglasses. Stay tuned for new developments.

Jeff and Kristen visit

The first picture shows Jeff on arrival, still in Washington mode and finishing off an important memo. Lucky for him, he has an artist to hang out with ...

We spent the rest of that sunny day at one of the cool hip hangouts on the beach, lounging in bean bags and sipping beer while sheltered from a brisk North Sea wind. Ah, the Dutch really do have this figured out well. Lekker. Day 2 was spent recovering from some deadly lemon-grass martinis, renting bikes, playing cards, and biking to a local fish-fry eatery. While Jeff and Kristen went to the wonderful Mauritshaus museum and checked out the Hague, I finished off a plein air painting in a field in the Dunes. Fantastic day.