Azure inlets and wooded splendor characterize the watercolors of Michael Schlicting, the Oregon coast's favorite artist. Not content to be limited by his native Oregon, Schlicting also paints from his travels around the world, from the streets of South American cities to the courtyards of Italy.

 "A painting is, by its very nature, a window," Schlicting says, "and I like the feeling of looking through, glimpsing for that brief moment the image, the essence of the thing, trying to paint the memories, not of some specific place, but that universal longing."