Things are quietly moving along with our happy creation. As you know, we chose to do something along the lines of the dichotomy between rural and urban, generally speaking.
Lynn lives on the outskirts of the city and enjoys rural views from her urban digs. Maria lives smack in the middle of the city (formerly the outskirts!) in an acre with plenty of "elbow room" between neighbors, neatly simulating a tiny rural environment.

Anyhow, Lynn is in possession of my puzzle blocks and I am about done carving my part on my own block, plus the four pieces. I might do a color background on the...er, background, but that is to be decided.

In the meantime, I received Lynn's block, neatly carved with a variety of interesting images and shapes.

This is a proof of the block, with my "blank canvas" at the bottom. I really liked the roof shapes and the shape of the vegetation-divider in the middle of the image, so I decided to replicate them.

Since I don't often sketch except right on the block, I had to revise the way I work. I took this very picture into Photoshop and proceeded to doodle on the bottom with my trusty graphic tablet pen.
I wanted those very interesting shapes to tie in my design and Lynn's so I simply copied and pasted some of her shapes with some stretching and replicating and mirror imaging and all that is possible with PS.
I find that looking at images very small on the computer screen helps balance compositions and blacks and whites. Also help in color schemes.
Lynn's rooftops became my mountains, the little house in the middle of the desert was "stolen" from Lynn's housing complex, the horses shrunk to fit the scale, and the bushes flipped and distorted to fill in the foreground and balance the blacks.

Since moving to Reno some years ago from a softer, greener place, I have used art to grapple with my environment. I found that making art about the place is my way to claim it and feel at home. In the beginning I was intimidated by the desert landscape and started with still life paintings. Soon the still life objects were perched before windows with a glimpse of the hills beyond. Later I found a group of plein air painters who introduced me to the many facets of my new home state which I have come to appreciate, and maybe even love.
I also find that living in town is convenient in all sorts of ways, though the quiet, empty, wild places of Nevada are the ones that nourish my spirit. Luckily, I have a taste of both, living as I do at the urban edge of northern Nevada’s largest metropolitan center. From the front of my house I overlook a sea of tract houses and hear the hum of the distant freeway. From the back of the house, I see hill beyond hill of pinion-dotted rocky land which so far is only lightly tamed by human development. This urban interface is an interesting place of contrast and conflict. The wild horses in their quest for food often make themselves unwelcome on the suburban lawns. The rabbits and ground squirrels make gardening a frustrating business. This place of dichotomy, this tension between untamed and over regimented is the inspiration for the work I am doing for the Geographical Divides project.