I have been very fortunate in being able to travel widely in connection with scientific meetings, workshops of the International Association for the Astronomical Arts, and personal family travel. In recent years, I have tried to take paints along in order to paint in unfamiliar landscapes.

When I was in school, I thought that statements about the differences in the "quality of light" in different locales were vague and unscientific; now I realize their truth, and that light and landscape are very much affected by climate and location. For example, the Sonoran desert has very clear air and harsh light, while the coastal regions of California have many salt grains and other particulates that diffuse the sunlight and create the widely noted "golden glow" of southern California. One of my pleasures is to try to be attuned to, and to capture, this very specific sense of place and/or season, as well as more obvious differences in landscape, plants, and geology.

320 -- Twilight off the Coast of Yalta, Crimea. During the Glasnost period in 1990, the Russian Union of Artists invited the International Association for the Astronomical Arts to a series of workshops and exchanges. In one of these we went to the Crimean peninsula on the Black Sea, a favorite Russian resort and artistic area. This was painted there after a boat ride down the coast. At first, I was not going to include the construction crane; but I was influenced by the Russian art which portrayed many honest scenes of real life in the USSR of that time. Construction and cranes were ubiquitous. It was a step for me to move away from idealized landscapes and include what I came to think of as the national bird, the construction crane, to represent what we were seeing all around us. I've always been glad I did; it made the painting much more specific to that time and place. (Copyright William K. Hartmann).

399 -- Kafka's castle, Prague. The government buildings of Prague lie on a hill across the river from the downtown area of Prague. These were the inspiration for the brooding "castle" and massed offices of bureaucrats that figured in Kafka's writings. In reality, the city and the castle building are beautiful. This was painted in a nearby hotel during a meeting of the 1994 Meteoritical Society in Prague. (Collection Dr. Charles B. Osburn). (Copyright William K. Hartmann).

356.5 -- Spring in Fayence, France. During one trip to Europe in 1992, I had an opportunity to visit a friend in the south of France, not far from Cannes and Nice. Having missed earlier opportunities to paint in the land and landscapes of the Impressionists, I was determined this time to get out and paint. This was the product of an afternoon of painting from nature (with subsequent revision) of the old, hillside town of Fayence. (Copyright William K. Hartmann).

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