Last summer, I had an interesting gig.  I taught painting on a cruise ship.  I taught the class on the days we were at sea;  the days we were in port, I was free to roam.  One of our stops was Venice.  Of course, Venice is an artists dream.  My goal was to take as many photos as I could that might make good paintings.  I stopped at every bridge overlooking a canal and snapped away.  When we got home, I plugged my card into the computer.  I swooned and squealed as I saw the photos that I took.  (Tom was convinced that I had a new lover in my office because the noise I was making sounded like ecstasy. )  I couldn't wait to do these paintings, but when?  I had several commissions that took precedence.  I decided that I would incorporate my art classes that I teach with my goal of what I really wanted to paint.  So this semester, the class would focus on architecture.  For each of my four classes, I would teach my students about perspective and demonstrate through my paintings.  Each week , I focused on a different aspect.  The first week, the drawing of perspective, the 2nd week, the block in.  The third week I focused on windows and doors.  The fourth week, I focused on reflections.

Here's the first one I did for the Wed morning class.  Of course, I didn't complete the whole painting in class.  I did a small demo in class and then took the painting home and worked on it for hours before the next part of the demo.  This one is from my Venice Series called  "Canal in Venice # 4."  (I actually did 3 others prior to this one.)