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Irish locals
Jim & Cathy (above) enjoyed snapping pictures on their Village Italy tour. The results caught the eye of a Chicago artist.  

A Village Italy tour inspires an ongoing art project

Back in 2008, I built a website from our 2007 Village Italy tour. A few months ago, I was contacted by Jim Swanson, a painter who asked if he could paint some of my photos. Together, we decided that he would do 14 paintings — one a day — for each day of the trip. 

As part of this, Jim is blogging about the process he goes through to create each painting. He's currently on Day 4 of the trip. I think this is really interesting and thought you might as well. You can see an introduction to the project in his blog, which he's named The Artist and the Traveler.

From there, you can see paintings for each day (so far) listed in the lower-right corner of the page. I don't know if this is "news worthy," but I thought you might find it interesting.

Village Italy — with Karin Kibby as our guide — was a wonderful experience that we will never forget. This painting project brings back memories of many good times. In 2009 we went to South Italy and we're planning for Villages and Vineyards of France in 2011.

Hope you get a chance to take a peek at the blog.

— Jim and Cathy in Fort Collins, CO

Editor's note: if you've taken a tour with us in 2010 and like the idea of creating a website from your experience, check out our online tour scrapbook contest. You could win a tour!

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