I thought I'd share a new painting I have up on the easel:

 

 Not sure how much more I'll get done today because I'm getting the studio ready for the First Fridays art walk tonight. If you come out to the gallery on the art walk tonight you'll probably see it on the easel in all it's unfinished glory (along with a number of other paintings that are actually finished and framed :-) .)

 This scene is an aerial view of the little fishing village Pescallo in Lake Como, Italy. It was my view every morning from the balcony of our hotel room in Bellagio (*sigh*). What I'm painting is the village rooftops and  the placid lake with docked boats in early morning. I hope it turns out, because I really loved that scene.

All of this work I've done for the "Luminosity" show, has really helped to get me into painting water scenes. For the longest time I had a fear of water-- not "real" water, just water as subject for my paintings. I don't know why. I guess it was just a mental block or something. So this past summer, I made a point to "just do it" and I really tried to focus on water scenes, especially when I went out painting en plein air.

On another note, I'd like to send a shout of thanks out to artist Boyd Greene for giving me a nod of recognition yesterday on his own fine art blog. I just discovered that I was among the artists he honored with a "Shibumi" award. According to Boyd;

 The ’shibumi’ award was originally created by Hawk and has a deep and profound meaning: ‘Shibumi is a Japanese term which used in the following context is a noun. Its meaning refers to a ‘particular aesthetic of simple, subtle, and unobtrusive beauty� which can be applied to almost anything.’

Thank you Boyd! I truly feel grateful and honored by my fellow artist bloggers this week. :-)