Travel

Let the France photos begin! Over the next month I'm slowly going to be sharing the art and architecture from my week in Paris. First up: Notre-Dame de Paris. It's a medieval Catholic cathedral and widely considered to be one of the finest examples of French Gothic Architecture. The cathedral is also filled with art of all kinds -- statues, woodworking, paintings, stained glass, and more! In this first photo note how the shadow of the angel looks oddly gargoyle-esque.... I'm thinking that maybe all the ceilings in my life should be painted like the one above! The more contemporary... Read more →


Today I'm sharing some snapshots from London with some thoughts on how they might be useful in art making. Remember, inspiration is all around you! Finding actual art-in-the-wild is always exciting: Don't forget that architecture is a kind of art-in-the-wild as well! All of these historical buildings have wonderful details to inspire patterns, stamps, textures, etc: The photos you take of yourself and your family are perfect studies for body position: How about portraits? I'm always drawing straight-on faces. This photo has a great example of a 3/4 face: I'm also guilty of using supermodel magazine images as reference material.... Read more →


"The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." (Saint Augustine) Today I'm sharing some more photos from our trip to Spain. I believe that an enormous part of being an artist, for me, is being exposed to different cultures, different approaches, and different ways of living in the world. Sometimes you are lucky enough to go around the world to absorb all that different, and thanks to the internet, we can all catch a glimpse! I hope you enjoy these photos! Come and take a peek through my eyes: How are these photos... Read more →


As I mentioned last week, we went to see two Medieval Villages while we were in Spain. Today I am sharing the second: Peratallada (the link at left leads to a really nice article describing the village and its history). You may have noticed that I took a lot of photos of doors. They are one of the things that I'm always drawn to photograph. I feel like doors are full of stories. There's something about them that's full of character and it always feels to me like something or someone could emerge from the door at any moment! I... Read more →


We went to see two medieval villages while we were in Spain. The first was Pals, which I'm sharing photos of today. We don't have any architecture this old in the U.S. It just blew my mind that we were touching walls and stairs and stones from the 15th century. Does anyone else think that's like the coolest thing ever?! I love the layers of color and texture and unexpected art moments! I was thinking about how to verbalize the things I liked so much about this ancient village. Believe it or not, I think they're the same things that... Read more →


I've got some photos from London for you today. I was blown away by the Gothic Revival architecture of the city. It made me think a lot about how people used to value the work of artisans; the importance of living and working and worshipping somewhere filled with visual iconography. You can read more about the architecture of Big Ben (the clock tower with the scaffolding around it) here and more about Westminster Abbey's architecture here and the Palace of Westminster (i.e. House of Parliament) here. A friend of mine, who is an architectural historian, told me that this kind... Read more →