Welcome!

This blog is an attempt to informally document our 2013 painting excursion across the United States of America. the project was Kickstarter funded, our first attempt at crowd-funding, and you can see the project video, and what amount was raised for what rewards here -

Our previous painting project 'Year of the Boat' involved purchasing a 60ft Narrowboat and touring the inland waterways of Britain producing nearly 80 oil paintings all 100% painted directly in front of the motif. See the blog for that adventure here -

Whilst the Year of the Boat has proved very successful in having a mobile studio setup, what was a stressful element was the constant travelling and pushing to finish the tour spending only a few days in each spot. This may sound perfectly acceptable, even luxurious to most, but the practice of painting takes a little longer to scratch the surface of an area, ideally having 3 to 4 days with each piece of work.

So with this excursion to the US we have adopted a different format, limiting the travel and basing ourselves in two major spots for longer periods - San Francisco and New York. Two very different but culturally rich, iconic locations I had never experienced before where we have booked into self contained accommodation for as long as we can afford. So we have just over three weeks in San Francisco in July, a short road trip to Yosemite National Park and Las Vegas, and then flying to New York for the full month of August painting the Big Apple.

The main purpose of the trip is to try and produce a large strong body of en plain air paintings around these World Art Capitals. I shall not be selling the work whilst in the US but ideally I would like to use this showcase of work to develop contacts in the New York art scene that would enable future visits and he stocking of US art galleries.

Wish me luck, and hope you enjoy the ride!

Rob