June and July: One event in June was simply the best day of the year. I am of course referring to the birth of our beautiful granddaughter on June 27th. She will be six months old tomorrow and becomes more beautiful every day. Day 178 really was the best day of the year.

At the beginning of the month I continued my Italian theme with two Tuscan landscapes…

     

…and three variations of the Upper Church of the Basilica di San Francesco in Assissi…

…and in the process quite serendipitously created a series of palette mosaic fans made from the colour test strips from all of the Italian paintings.

  

Towards the end of June I began my journey through the Tate Watercolour Manual: Lessons from the Great Masters, which I had been introduced to by the wonderful Debi Riley whose blog The Creative Zone is a treasure trove you should all explore.  Over the next four weeks I worked my way through the book and learnt so much in the process…

     

…posting another wall of paintings at the end of my journey on July 24th, Day 205, a post that also included a slide show of all the pieces.

Two final images from June and July to join my favourite paintings of the year…

   

…the dresses and shoes in my granddaughters closet.