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November Challenge Sketch – Azay le Rideau

November Challenge Sketch – Azay le Rideau

Here the sketch I will use to paint Azay le Rideau for the November ADNW challenge. To make the sketch, I first drew a 1-inch grid overlay on top of the reference photo using Photoshop. To keep things simple, I printed the gridded photo at actual size, which is 11 x 14. I then drew [...]

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| November 20, 2011 | 4 Comments
November 2011 Painting Challenge Gallery

November 2011 Painting Challenge Gallery

You have arrived upon the gallery submissions for the November 2011 ADNW painting challenge. Past challenges and associated galleries can be found by clicking the “Painting Challenge” tab at the top of the home page. Thanks to all that submit their work! Click here to submit a painting. Please take the time to click on the artist’s name [...]

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| November 17, 2011
November 2011 ADNW Painting Challenge

November 2011 ADNW Painting Challenge

This one will be fun! This is a photo I took while visiting the beautiful Château d’Azay-le-Rideau in France. I am planning to enter a painting this month as well. My plan is to work on getting the draftsmanship right first. A bad drawing can ruin a perfectly good painting! Then it will just be [...]

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| November 17, 2011 | 0 Comments
Little French World – Chinon, France

Little French World – Chinon, France

I thought I would have a bit of fun with today’s images of Chinon, France by processing a few of them in a way that makes the town look miniature. These photographs were taken while Donna and I toured the Forteresse Royale du Chinon last September. The images overlooking the town are particularly well suited [...]

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| November 12, 2011 | 5 Comments
Driving from Provence to the French Riviera

Driving from Provence to the French Riviera

After spending three nights in the hilltop village of Roussillon in Provence, we hopped in the car and made our way to Nice on the French Riviera. I had to return the rental car by 5:30pm in Nice so we had to plan our trek carefully. Rental return hours can be unpredictable in Europe so [...]

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| November 6, 2011 | 3 Comments
Homebuilding Series: Building a House One Bite at a Time

Homebuilding Series: Building a House One Bite at a Time

The American Dream I have met many people that have dreamed about building their own home. I have always had a fascination with building things and I too had a life goal of building our own house. And when I say build, I mean purchase the lot, design the floor plan, and be the general [...]

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| November 5, 2011 | 3 Comments
French Chateau Series

French Chateau Series

I am planning to start selling my work in nicely made museum quality frames. To test possibilities, I thought I would first visualize a series of framed French Chateau images processed in sepia. To me these images work well with an aged photo technique because the structures themselves are about 400 to 500 years old. [...]

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| November 2, 2011 | 6 Comments
Loire Valley Boathouse – Stressing the Focal Point in Photography

Loire Valley Boathouse – Stressing the Focal Point in Photography

What could be more perfect than a boat tied to a quaint little boathouse with flowers everywhere and no swing set in the back yard? The beautiful scene above is one we ran across while visiting Chateau Azay-le-Rideau in the Loire Valley. As I crossed the bridge, I was instantly drawn to the near perfect [...]

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| October 30, 2011 | 3 Comments
Loch-Vale View Inspires My Respect for the Frailty of Life

Loch-Vale View Inspires My Respect for the Frailty of Life

I considered being able to take this photo a privilege and a significant accomplishment at the same time. The scene you see above is what I found at the end of a two and a half hour hike to an elevation of 10,200 feet in Rocky Mountain National Park. I know Everest would be infinitely [...]

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| October 28, 2011 | 14 Comments
The Doors and Windows of Roussillon

The Doors and Windows of Roussillon

While Donna and I were staying in the the popular hilltop village of Roussillon in the south of France, we took a stroll down the back streets to look for interesting windows and doors to photograph. Ahhh, it would be hard to invent such textures and finishes! The surfaces were worn, discolored, and cracked…and they [...]

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| October 24, 2011 | 13 Comments

The ADNW Painting Challenge