You Never Know....

You never know where art may show up next!

 A blank canvas...I mean a pure white rain barrel, and a friend who wanted to

meet the corporate challenge of painting rain barrels for the

county fair, all conspired to rope me in to designing and painting this most

unusual object de arte.

Our company sponsor is Nahacky's Aquarium, premier tropical fish store of the Space Coast,              so of course we needed a

"fishy theme." Here I am applying the first of many coats of paint...

Now a little supervision from "the boss" Dave.

After many days of "technical research" and lots of hours of painting

the design is coming together.

Now it is actually getting fun..the brighter the better.  We opted for

humorous and a very liberal interpretation of our fish.

Final product?  You have to see it to believe it.

Put the Brevard County Fair on your must-visit list running March 22-

April 1 at Wickham Park.  Of course there are midway rides

but after you enjoy the fainting goats, the prize chickens and

the chile-cookoff you will want to drop by the tent

of painted rain barrels...I mean, Van Gogh had to

start somewhere, no?

Blast from the Past

My recent paintings of snow reminded my mother of one I did when I was 11 years old...and here it is!  In 1964 I had not even seen snow so why I chose to paint this scene is beyond me...and it must have been from a postcard because I feel certain those are not the Smokey Mountains in the background.  This is a large painting, about 18" high by almost 24" wide and was done before acrylic was even invented, I think we called this paint "casin."  For fun I decided to replicate it in pastel and, painting only from the original piece, here is what I came up with:

This rendition is only 5" x 7" and is done in pastel on paper.  You can see that I took some liberties with the composition, adding and subtracting a few things.  And today, a bazillion years later, I have seen snow and the Rocky Mountains.  But honestly, I'm not sure that my re-do is all that different in style and technique!  Perhaps I will date and sign this one and, in a few years, revisit it once again...might be interesting to observe the progress as time moves on.  In fact, I already see a few things I need to change (the camera does that) so I'll make some notes and, if we're all still here, send it out again in 10 years!!

p.s. Kudos to my then art teacher, Barbara Bassett, who made me so proud when I finished a piece...she instilled in me a love for creating that exists even today.  Wonder if I can find her on Facebook!?!!