After visiting Napa/sonoma wine country I was inspired to put mountain art aside for awhile and paint the beautiful countryside of northern California. It is inspirational to all that love to grow gardens and love the farmlands. Of course it is inspirational to wine lovers.
While in Napa I was able to visit many of my favorite wineries and some I had never heard of. One of those was Arista where we enjoyed the incredible gardens and out of that was the art piece of the chairs and wine barrels and the landscape looking to the mountains.
I loved the peju winery. They have art all over in the gift shop and the gardens with sculpture were amazing. I painted the building from Peju with its fabulous European design.
The ironhorse winery made for a delightful piece of art. The rolling hills with the fall vines were so beautiful. The wine tasting is done on a old wood board and I enjoyed the atmosphere of a little wine tasting while looking over the harvested vineyards.
I painted a couple of pictures that have no name…,the Barn in Napa and the tall Italian building. After being in Italy several times the wineries in California compare in beauty and the flavors of California wines are hard to beat. We felt like we had flown to italy while eating the food at Willi’s wine bar and tasting the flavors from local growers.
All of my giclee printing is done by VANGOGHAGAIN in Broomfield, and my framing is done by Tim Tripp of Grizzley Creek framing. Together we are coming up with some beautiful designs and products that I am happy to present .
Tim and his wife, Craig Cranston and myself have brainstormed a new line coming out with the wine art that we will present on the website soon. We are working on the prototypes now and the name of the company we will announce soon. To think
this was all born out of one little trip to wine country is really cool. You know what God says:
Make plans counting on God to direct your path…what fun is that!
Keep checking in to the blog because I am putting my schedule together for the upcoming classes. Those classes will be in pastel and pencil including some life drawing sessions. We will hire a model to do figurative classes. Because of the location of the classes the models will be at least draped for a more modest approach to life drawing but we will still learn so much about the human figure.
I hope you all enjoy Christmas and the new year. We look forward to a prosperous new year !!!! That is an understatement.
