Are you in Chicago May 3rd - 5th? Or Portland, Oregon on May 11th and 12th? If so, you may want to head over to see The Sketchbook Project 2012 World Tour as it zooms through town. My sketchbook, Travel with Me... to the Napa Valley, is a part of the show.

In Chicago, Illinois, it will be at Hyde Park Art Center, on Thursday, May 3rd, from 3 to 7 pm, and on Friday and Saturday, May 4th and 5th, from 12 to 4 pm. Hyde Park Art Center is at 5020 S. Cornell Avenue in Chicago.

In Portland, Oregon, it will be at The Cleaners at the Ace Hotel (yes, really!) on Saturday, May 11th, from 4 to 8 pm, and Sunday and Monday, May 12th and 13th, from 1 to 5 pm. You'll find it at 1022 SW Stark Street in Portland.

A note about the old Gliderport: both it and the old warehouses near it, which you can see in my blog post, The Sketchbook Project - I, are slated for demolition, likely to be replaced by a luxury hotel. They are treasured parts of a part of Calistoga's history, and I'm very glad they will at least live on in these sketches, long after the wonderful old, funky buildings themselves are gone.

Vineyard Palm, a 5" x 7" acrylic painting on panel, is my contribution to the Napa Valley Museum's Take a Chance on Miniatures show, opening May 4th, 2012.

I loved working out the aesthetic complexities of this piece (yes, believe it or not, a small size doesn't mean it's necessarily less complicated), which took me the better part of several days. I love its color – and, of course, its subject matter, a vineyard south of Calistoga.

The opening reception (free for members, $5 for guests) will be Friday, May 4th, 2012, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Vineyard Palm is one of eighty pieces juried into the exhibition – which is also a fundraiser for the museum. Luck and a $5 raffle ticket could get you this painting!

Are you anywhere near Brooklyn, New York? If you are, you have one more day to see my little sketchbook, Travel with Me to the Napa Valley, before it leaves for Chicago.

My sketchbook is a part of The Sketchbook Project 2012 World Tour, which opened on April 14th, at the Brooklyn Art Library. Sunday, April 29th, is the last day of the show! You can find the Brooklyn Art Library at 103A N. 3rd St. in Brooklyn, New York, and you can see the show from 12 - 8 pm.

I've been alternating between painting very large – Dusk in the Vineyards is 4' square – and painting very small. These miniatures measure just 5" x 7".

I discovered I enjoyed painting miniatures a couple of years ago, when I began painting them on panels, rather than on canvas. Before then, I found painting so small insufferable! The problem, I realized, was that the texture of the canvas got in the way of small brushstrokes. Panels solved the problem....

Painting these little paintings on panels often becomes a kind of meditative practice. Sometimes I move them from the easel to my lap, or I hold them in my hand, as I paint, and I slip into a quiet, centered, trance-like space that's a little different from my usual creative process.

The little one above – Silverado Trail Vineyards – of a scene near Calistoga, went home with a couple from Seattle, who live very near my grandparents' old co-op apartment building on Queen Ann Hill. There's a lovely circularity about that, which I particularly appreciated. I think my grandparents would have appreciated it, too....

Although you might think these little paintings don't take very long, they actually take quite a while – often as long as a painting two or three times as large. Painting them is a layering process, and each layer adds a new richness (well, I think so, anyway – but, then, I'm biased).

Two of these found new homes during Napa Valley Open Studios' event at Taste of Yountville in mid-March, so I didn't get to live with them long. But it's especially satisfying to see them go to good homes....

Once the painting is complete (this process sometimes takes a long time – every painting has its own timetable), it's time to be photographed. Dusk in the Vineyards is 4' square – just a tad too large for my Volvo stationwagon – but my friend Lil very kindly loaned me her van for the trip to the photographer's in Napa.

Photographer Dave Courtney has a setup that can scan paintings much larger than this. He uses two large-format cameras for the scan. It's an impressive process – much more accurate than what I am able to photograph myself, and at much higher resolution.

I returned the next day for the painting and the scan, and then it was time to head back home to Calistoga, and hang the painting in Lil's store, Funke's, where it currently graces the back wall. I have to say, I do love this painting.... (You know, they're kind of like my children....)