![AFI [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://i2.wp.com/artscrapsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Botanischer_Garten_Santo_Domingo-300x225.jpg?resize=300%2C225)
Botanical Garden, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Puerto Plata is a city on the north side of the island and just a few hours from the Haitian border. Christopher Columbus settled in Puerto Plata, founding the first European-American colony in this very region. So as a traveler I walked on historic ground and wondered deeply about how cultures survive for centuries… continue reading
painted tin boxes, by Irene
This weekend I decided to make more painted tin boxes. Last year, I invented a new way of decorating tin with nail polish. I had the sweetest old tin box, and I had a whole set of nail polish that I was not using… the rest is history… continue reading
my blue birdhouse
Don’t you love wood? Wood is the substrate for many beautiful pieces of art.
Here is a modest example of painted wood art: a Swedish plate that depicts a rural scene and windmill, my cedar box, my bird house pickled blue, a fruit still life painted on a wood cutting board, and a folk art cow panel, that I saw in Gilroy recently: continue reading
I recommend the books, The Zen of Seeing and The Awakened Eye by Frederick Franck, to artists and art lovers everywhere. Essentially Franck tells artists to let real life guide your drawings. Using the principles of The Zen of Seeing, I sketched my cat G.B., doing my best to remove my ego and preconceptions from what I drew. continue reading
One of my friends, Sara Bell, has recently invented wire dragons and butterflies, made out of colored wires and beads: continue reading