Yes, Marietta, there really is a Big Chicken Chorus. But, unlike the real one, this is an imaginary scene on the Square of Marietta during one of the summertime noon Brown Bag Concert series in Glover Park.   

Maestro Big Chicken is moved to tears by the harmony of his choir. His choir is also moved, but in a different fashion as they notice most of the admiring audience enjoy a picnic lunch of fried chicken and CoCola.

So, with the arrival of warmer weather, join neighbors, shoppers and diners this Thursday at the bandstand on the Square in Marietta.  

When I started this website in November, I knew I had a lot of pictures hanging around or under-foot in my studio. But over one hundred? Well, in celebration of Earthday, it's time for a little housecleaning - or gallery reorganizing.

I seem to have an eclectic selection of artistic works, so I'm using this rainy weekend to  divide my gallery into sections: Portraits, Animals, Nature, Architecture, Scenes around Marietta, Travel, Minimalism, Abstract. Hopefully this change will make it easier for the viewer to choose art that is most interesting for him or her.  

Take a look and please tell me what you think. Does it work for you? I'd appreciate your comment and suggestions to make viewing this art exhibit better and easier.

To entice you, today I'll add a couple "Minimalist" sketches made last year, which also appear in  the "Travel" section.  

   I didn't realize so many people had been to the Czech Republic. If so, some of you following my website and blogs might like to see this drawing of my view of the Charles Bridge from the Lesser Town section of Prague.  It may seem familiar but slightly out of proportion.  Call that "artistic license".

To make the scene dramatic with the right amount of "silhouette lighting", I noticed the angle of the sun and decided it a good time to break away from our tour group in late afternoon.  To get a different perspective I had to carefully climb down the inclined cobblestone bank almost to water's edge. Then squat for a "point of view" with cell phone "looking up" to photograph. Nothing to hold on to and no way to safely sit to sketch. Then scramble up again without sliding backwards into the Moldau River. I'm reminded I'm not as nimble nor well-balanced as I used to be.

Sara displayed her typical sanity, standing safely above on level ground, arms folded, shaking her head wondering what possesses an old man to do this. She wasn't making plans for what to do if the inevitable occurred. She didn't know the Czech word for "HELP!" Bystanders sitting on benches drinking coffee or beer stopped their conversation to grin at her dilemma, and mine.

She likes the picture now.  We don't discuss my artistic foolishness, however, leading to it's creation.

Sara and I are not avid bike riders, far from it.  But we did some riding last summer and one location  through the Sumava National Park, bordering Germany / Bohemia, inspired the accompanying picture.   Let me describe.

So, imagine a calm summer afternoon, riding bicycles like kids through an old spruce forest. Warm sun on your shoulders, cooled by a slight breeze on your face with comforting scent of pine blended with decomposing mulch. spectacular  green spruce limbs tipped with gold reaching out from the sides and overhead.  A carpet of ferns with pine bark and tree trunks border the trail you ride on, accompanied by the hypnotic whirr of bike tires upon pavement.  

No doubt, this was a fairy-tale land and experience.  Looking for Hansel and Gretel around the next bend was not out of the question.  Or, maybe Little Red Riding Hood, is more appropriate?

Looking for a way out of this winter, Sara and I are pumping up the tires on our bikes and hoping to get on the new Mountain to River Trail this weekend.

Come join us!

​Also adding to my gallery a picture of our biking tour through Sumava National Park last Summer, on what was the East/West communist border of Bavaria and Germany during the Cold War.