Painting

Last year I started painting again.  After a great long while – let’s just say about 20 years and be done with it – I picked up a paint brush and started splashing paint on a canvas.  And it all came about because of my daughter’s acting career.

My daughter has talent in spades and the passion to go with it.  One of those talents is acting.  She’s proud, enthusiastic and struts the stage like she owns it.  She auditions for local theatre productions and gets parts.  For me, that means playing chauffeur to the aspiring starlet on a fairly regular basis and because I’m an over-protective dad, I tend to show up early to pick her up.  

Last year, a round of rehearsals were held at our local Centre for the Arts.  I showed up early with a book and was about to settle into one of the far too comfortable wing-backed chairs when I heard a familiar voice from a nearby room.

Inside the room were a half dozen easels with painters applying oils and acrylics over canvases of all sizes.  The voice I heard belong to a woman who I met through a mutual friend.  Here’s a link to some of her art.

Meredith Blackmore is a fabulous painter.  As I walked into the room she introduced me to everyone there.  Being a small community, I knew a few of the people, including the local newspaper editor and a yoga instructor who lives just down the street from me.  I was so impressed by the quality of the art that was being made.  I told Meredith that it took me back – way back – to the days when I used to dabble in painting with acrylics. 

“Well,” she said, “we just happen to have an empty table every other Thursday.”

That was all the encouragement I needed.  Painting exercises a whole different set of creative muscles than writing and though I’ve a number of false starts and only one painting I really consider finished, the last year has been a blast. 

I know my paintings aren’t very good.  Some are downright bad but the painting adventure looks like it will be continuing…at least for another year.

This was my initial painting.  Unfinished.

I rather like the wheels on this truck, but the rest of it is out of perspective.

This is my interpretation of the Pentre Ifan Burial Chamber in Wales

Here's the photo I worked from.

Painting of a bridge at Wakehurst Place in England

The photo I worked from

Easter Island - this is the only painting I consider finished.

A local haunted farmhouse - started but only just.

The current project - this will be a painting of a bowstring bridge
when I'm done.