Sitting in open-air bleachers watching a pick-up basketball game somewhere in Tennessee while enjoying a slice of homemade apple pie. This is how I do a painting trip. My paints are in the van, so it counts as a painting trip... I stared at the trees and rocks for a while at Daniel Boone's park, again, keeping the paints fresh in the van. As soon as I finish my pie I’ll take up my pencil and sketch someone just to give credit to the outing. Other sketch options were a nice little cafe where the pie was, or a quart of sauerkraut (to keep regular), which also looked good.
Too many hamburger places pulling at me... These small town restaurants and cafes are my source for inspiration. There is something about the word itself, "cake", that is art to me. Other inspiring art is Gene Kelly in An American in Paris. Maybe I can't dance but I am a fairly good painter. Dancing in the rain for me? A dry library is more my style. The life of Edward Hopper is my splashing in the street - I’ve seen that scene a hundred times. Jordan is my Leslie Caron.
Why do I leave the studio for these painting trips? With the pie gone, the kid standing under the basketball goal is first for my pencil. Later, with seven kids safe in my book, I walk back to try that chocolate cake.
A Diet Coke and chips for dinner in a less than a four-star motel. Paint brushes make useful chopsticks for eating sauerkraut from a blue canning jar while watching "Shane". Jack Palance was great, another actor that, just watching him come on screen, was inspiring. These little inspirations made me want to do my best with what I did. Painting Jordan nursing Josphine is my “Dancing in the Rain.” A painting of an old fallen oak tree is Jack Palance dying in a cloud of gunsmoke in that old saloon/dry goods store.
Turning the lights off, I think I’ll go back to Daniel Boone's park and take my paints out of the van.
