Old Tobacco Barn Painting

 

It's a Dog's Day

I was out at the  Wake Forest Historical Museum enjoying  Plein-Air painting "The Old Well" landmark one summer morning when Allen came by walking his dog Frankie. Apparently this is their neighborhood and hang out, and the go to place to walk on beautiful days. It seemed natural to add them into the painting I was working on and I appreciate Allen letting me take some photo references to use as well. I tried to capture the peacefulness and sunlight as well as  the relationship between Allen and Frankie. It was also nice to be able to put them in the surroundings that they are both familiar with. I decided to call this painting "It's a Dog's Day" because of the relationship between the man and his dog. Clearly when this dog is around ... the day belongs to him!

Harkers Island NC Light House Horses

This is my husbands favorite place in the world to fish. He works hard from sun up to sundown  7 days a week. He is lucky to get that rare day when the wind is not blowing and the waves are not too rough and everything lines up just right at work. In the past 35 years I generally would not go with him because he leaves at 4 in the morning and also the waves can whip up choppy quickly and make for a scarey ride.This particular day I decided to brave it and was so glad I did. The ocean was like glass and the horses were out getting a early morning breakfast.

Averette Home, Snowy Memories

Rainy Day on the Corner of Jackson & Grant: China Town, San Fransico

   This by far took the longest of any painting I have created.

 It was like a puzzle, every day I put it together piece by piece. 

I was afraid to do the Chinese lettering because I know how easy it 
Is to make a mistake and then who knows what you just wrote in Chinese? 
My fear is grounded on reality. 

Many years ago we had some Spanish speaking employees for our business  I had

 a little hand book  on learning Spanish and was trying

 to learn a phrase or two. They put up with me . I could say "¿Dónde está Phillippe ? 

( Where is Phillip?) and they 

would point me in the right direction. Then one morning I was on my way to work and

 I hit a cat that ran in front of my car, and I wanted to tell them. I thought I remembered 

what the word" dead" sounded like, and everybody knows cat is gato so I went into work

 and said " El gato es una mierda." Then I made little hand motions 

and charade signals to relay the story of the cat. They nodded solemnly. I figured they

were feeling pretty bad for that cat.
 Later that week I was with a group of friends one of whom could speak fluent Spanish, 

so I told him what I said to the
workers about the cat. He laughed until he cried. I was puzzled-"
"What?" I asked, "What?" He said between gasp of breath..
"Tammy, you were so close, but you said, "The cat is shit." 

 If you wanted to say the cat is dead you
should have said...El gato está muerto. 

HUM

 El gato está muerto - El gato es una mierda." ..

.. it sounded the same to me.
And so, it is true, close doesn't count
 ...........except in horseshoes and hand grenades.

Quick Trick Book Stack

I still have a plethora of books hanging around. My kids love books and as they got older the books accumulated. I wanted to do a still life one afternoon so I decided to put them to use along with some pansy's from the yard. I stacked them all in my shadow box and adjusted the lighting, it took a few tries to get it all balanced and looking the way I wanted it to look and some where along the way I began to call it a "Quick Trick Book Stack."

Harnette County Homestead

I wanted to call this painting  "The Old House in My Mom's Neck of the Woods" but I was not sure if any one who is not a Southerner would understand that term. My mother and I went out driving one day so she could show me some of the old houses that our relatives had lived in. Most of the ones we were looking for had already been torn down . We did stumble on this one and although it is not connected to any family member living there it was still an old landmark my mom had known forever. So she patiently sat in the car on the side of the road so I could jump out and take photos.  I decided to leave this one sorta "shabby" in style. I  made that decision when I  got to a point in the painting  that if I tried to push it any further it would begin to look to new and spruced up.

George Washington -Fayetteville Street, Raleigh Nc

As I painted this I imagined old George saying, "Don't make me have to come down and straighten this city out." My son works on the 6th floor of the pink building with blue windows, so I painted this  one for his office.

Carriage Ride , Charleston