What happens to your work....sometimes.

This is Rembrandt's "Descent from the Cross" which I copied in 1977 the year after I left art school. I gave it to the church I was going to about 1980. The painting hung for many years at the top of the entrance stairs, so it was the first thing you noticed when arriving. In the course of time, I left that church and after hanging there for probably 20 years the painting was taken down during a remodeling. That wall was taken out and the picture was put into storage. One of my friends there died and I attended the memorial service to be surprised by the fact that the painting was gone. I later asked someone what had happened to it. Just a month ago the new minister decided to clean up the storage area, my friends contacted me and the painting is now back with me after about 25 years. That is the story and here's the point....as you can see in the somewhat blurry closeup (bottom picture) there is a bloom over the picture, some scratches and some frame damage and a hole in the liner around the frame. After a good cleaning it came out looking like new. Not much I can do about the cloth liner, but I can touch up the frame with a little paint. Once your painting leaves your hands there isn't much you can do when it's not well cared for, luckily this one is still good.

Deja vu at Emily Oaks Nature Center

I have done the plein air event at Emily Oaks Nature Center over the last 3 years with the Anatomically Correct painting group, an unofficial group. I stood almost in the same spot last year, but of course the concept behind the two are different --- what I did last year was not the same composition or focus as this one. Usually I don't do the same thing from time to time, but there just aren't that many great views here, sorry to say. So knowing what I know and painting the way I do, I pushed the color and brushwork. It's a 9" x 12" on a linen canvas panel prepared by me and painted in less than two hours.