Riding the Drive is an oil on 12″x12″ gallery wrap 1 1/2″ canvas. This painting was done as a Christmas gift for Allen who loves bicycling on the Skyline Drive. We live in an area where there are so many beautiful scenes to paint especially scenes from Skyline Drive across the Shenandoah Valley.
This is the beginning of a new painting year. Last year ended with 216 paintings done over the course of the year. I am working on a plan for this years goals and should have something ready to share this week. Until then I will continue with the daily work.
While I was in Michigan a few weeks ago I went to a little festival to check out the arts and crafts booths. But one of the fascinating things that I saw was a live statue. 
It was so interesting to see….especially to see the expressions on kids faces when she did finally move. They didn’t think she was real and they jumped when she moved.
This past weekend we flew to Michigan to Boyne Falls. This is what it looks like from the air.
We met with a group of folks that all have Commander airplanes. It’s a great group of folks. All crazy and fun! We did a fly out one day to Mackinaw Island. This is the view from out of the back window of the other planes lined up on the taxi way all ready to fly out together to Mackinaw.
You can see the prop in this shot of Mackinaw Island. The big white box you see is the Grand Hotel.
The great thing about Mackinaw Island is that there is no motorized vehicles. So when we all arrived and call for the taxi, this is what came to pick us up.
Life is definitely moving at a much slower pace on the island. It took 20 minutes to get from the little airport to the downtown area. This is the view from the “taxi” of the road leading to the Grand Hotel.
And the porch on the front of the Grand Hotel as we passed by in our “taxi”.
And another view of the hotel as we passed her by.
And this is the crew of pilots that made the trip over to Mackinaw. About 20 men and me!!! You wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to get them all moving in the same direction. It was just like herding cats!
This is the second painting that I have done from the photos I took on my recent trip to Arizona. I love the way the cactus look against the red rocks. This painting, “Prickly Pear”, is an oil on canvas panel measuring 10″x8″ and is available for $195. 
So it’s Sunday and we are on our way home from this big “aviator” weekend of the Air Races in Reno and we have to make a quick stop in Amarillo for a company picnic with our hosts, the Smiths. We land at the Amarillo airport and look out the window and what do we see???? The space shuttle!!!
Absolutely amazing. Keep in mind that I am with a group of pilots…all weekend they have gone to the airshow each day and drooled over airplanes and airplane equipment and now, here we are in the heart of Texas and what do we see? The ultimate in aviation…the space shuttle. 
So, of course, we delayed our trip out to the picnic for about 10 minutes so we could watch the shuttle take off, piggybacking on this HUGE airplane. There were a few others around taking pictures but overall I guess it is something that NASA doesn’t advertise for safety reasons. So we watched it take off. I even got a minute long video of it. (Sorry I can’t post it here for you to see. 😦 )
This past weekend Allen and I were invited by friends to go to Reno to the Air Races. While that may not have been the most thrilling thing for me to see, the guys loved it as they are all pilots. 
Air Races are exactly what they sound like. Old airplanes and new race around a “track” in the sky. Here is an old WWII trainer. There were about 6 or 7 of these in the race…all in perfect condition. Amazing!
And another example of the trainer….
And this is how it looks as they race by the bleachers.
There were also demonstrations of different types of jets.
By far, the most exciting display and the one that most people came to see was the Blue Angels. They travel with a large support plane. I’m sure that the guys could tell you the exact name for each of these but I can’t. 
As the team was getting ready to go up they introduced each of the pilots. Imagine our surprise when they introduced this one as a naval pilot from Warrenton, Virginia! 
They flew in tight formation and did several passes where they were only 18 inches apart from wing to wing. Can you imagine how much you would have to trust the people you work with to actually do that?
Some of the passes they even flew with one plane upright and one upside down….and so close together!
A couple of weeks ago I told you about our trip out west to Arizona and shared all the photos of the red rocks. 
And this is my painted version of Bell Rock. It is an oil painting on canvas panel measuring 9″x12″ and is available for purchase at $195 by contacting me at 
Cactus amazes me. I don’t understand how it works exactly but it is beautiful in its own way. 
Cactus makes a nice foreground for landscape shots in the west.
I love the way it looks in the landscape of the west. 
The Studio 