Artistic Inspiration Found in Leavenworthhttp://www.leavenworth.org

www.leavenworth.org

I have just returned from my trip to Leavenworth, Washington. I had a blast! How fun it was to get out of Idaho and go beyond my borders. I felt a little like a bird let out of a cage, free at last to fly! It was a shopper's paradise & the weather was perfect. I had a lot of fun buying clothes and souvenirs. As an artist, I found many creative, unusual & artistic things being sold at the shops that sparked my imagination. Many of the shops specialized in just one thing. There was the Wood Carving Shop, the Hat Shop, the Music Box Shop, plus some very unsusual shops like "Gifts From Russia" and an Australian theme shop. (What Australia is doing in a Bavarian theme I don't know.) The German/Swiss Alps/Bavarian theme that is in Leavenworth was very interesting to me since much of my ancestry is German. I fell in love with the architecture & design of the buildings. Many of the buildings had murals and decorative motifs painted on them. I found myself wondering if I could do something like that on the walls of my own house, but my husband didn't think that would be a good idea! I have included in today's blog photos of two of my favorite Bavarian theme buildings--the Obertal Mall and Tannenbaum Shoppe. Both have beautiful murals and decorative motifs painting on the outside walls.

There was one art gallery in Leavenworth I liked a lot. The gallery had mostly landscapes of the Leavenworth area painted by artist, Doug Miller. It gave me some great ideas for doing some paintings of my own.

I took lots of pictures and I think I may start a new art project next year that will be an artist's perspective of my trip to Leavenworth, Washington.

I was able to get a lot of artwork done on this vacation. I worked mostly on the portrait commission I have of a chocolate lab dog named Pika. It is about 60% done. I need to get it done before the Christmas Season gets into full swing!