i'm back......with apologies

"everyone's bigger than me"

"i wonder what i'm missing"

"mandy and me"

"having fun"

"taking five"

"norsekedalen nuptials"

well, after a ridiculously long hiatus due to circumstances beyond my control i will post the portraits that i was working on a the time that i abandoned my blogger duties.  i found that in doing these i tended to overwork those in which i know the persons....trying make them the best likeness that i could.  as result some of them are not as fresh-looking as i would like.  the more i do watercolors i realize that in my hands they don't like to be "fussed with." the first painting is of my daughter-in-law ("norsekedalen nuptials) on her wedding day with the backdrop of the arboretum where the gala event transpired and was originally posted about a year ago. the second ("i wonder what i'm missing" and also posted at same time as last) and third ("everybody's bigger than me")of my granddaughter sophie were inspired from photos taken by my aforementioned d-i-l (to give credit where credit is due).  lately, i have been doing more paintings of people some family members, trying to force myself to being more spontaneous and loose despite the familiarity. the first is titled "mandy and me"; the second with the two figures is entitled "taking five"; the last "having fun".  more recently i have done some figure in landscape work using old tintypes and turn of the 19th century public domain photos for the figures and placing them in landscapes that that i know. the photos help with the values and i get to make up the colors.....fun. i will post those as soon as i have taken some pictures of them.  lastly, i am currently working on a multi-figure painting of and old man on the streets outside the old north church in boston giving some probably unwanted advice to a couple of kids.  this from a photo i took several years ago.  i will plan on chronicling the process starting later this week.  hopefully i will follow through with this better than last year.  thanks for your patience, if you've been foolish enough to have tried to follow an apparently abandoned blog.