On Vacation Through June

Dear readers,

Due to the fact that Chicago lacks an ocean, I have headed east to smell the great salt air, finish up some projects, and celebrate my parents' 45th wedding anniversary. I'll be back online (and in Chicago) the last week of June. See you then. Thanks for stopping by.

The Challenge of Urban Painting

The long weekend gave me a chance to check in on some of my favorite blogs. (Can you tell?) Here's a remarkable insight about the challenge some city painters encounter when approaching a landscape. I excerpted it (and the image above) from Chicagoan Cynthia King's Fresh Paint:

One problem with living in the city is that (duh) to see the country you have to go far, so minimizing the distances you must travel to refresh your eyes is important.

A teacher I had at Ox-Bow years ago said that when people who ordinarily live in the city paint a landscape, they tend to pull themselves into it, or alternately, wrap it around themselves. I had difficulty seeing very long vistas without editing out all the lawn and water between me and the line of trees in the distance I wanted to paint.

Full post here.