My Musings//////////////////////

No I did not stop and grab donuts before sketching this one….

I decided to drive toward Downtown Greenville today, I almost made it into town but thought this line of telephone poles was neat all lined up and blocking my view of the downtown.

I am enjoying this very loose quick sketching. This one took me only about 20 minutes to complete. To me it gives you a sense of the view that I was looking at but I am only pointing out the parts that I want you to see. I am leaving out the noise and trying to let you see some beauty in what is otherwise not a very beautiful scene.

A quick 30 minute sketch sitting in front of The Blood Connection on Woodruff Road. I am a blood donor myself and thought this would be a nice quick sketch of their new location.

I thought this was an interesting scene while I sat in my truck, ate lunch and sketched. All the telephone lines in the way distracting the view of the church but I loved it. The church sign read “Visitors Welcome, Members Expected!”

Its just three nights or sleeps as Mason says before we go on vacation. I think we are already in full vacation mode so as Jodee sat down to watch “Jane Eyre” I sketched the TV.

I know my grandmother would not have been inspired to paint this painting from anything that could be found in Natchez. However she did make a number of trips to Alaska and the Northwest, so I am assuming that maybe her inspiration for this painting was from a photo that she may have taken.

This is the first in a series of posts about the first decade and a half of my life in Natchez, Mississippi.

My life is very different than it was 25 years ago as a 13 year old boy running through the woods of South Mississippi. I work in an office during the day on a 27″ iMac surrounded by the city and technology but there are times that I look back and think about those hot summer days bouncing along old foot trails on a 1984 Honda 70cc three-wheeler. We lived a simple life but I didn’t need anything more than a 50 cent cold coke in a glass bottle. I could never have even imagined that I would be a successful artist and designer as I am today but I don’t think I would have even wanted to think about it. In fact had I known, I might would have tried harder to stay there because the freedom as a boy without any worries and 1000′s of acres of other peoples private property to explore was enough for me.

My fondest memories are those of exploring St. Catherines Creek. It was a tributary that flowed into the Great and Might Mississippi river but not anywhere close to us. Where we lived the creek was probably the length of a football field wide and what most people would call a small river but this creek was an angry little monster and could swell from a small trickle of a stream to 20 feet deep in a matter of minutes. Flash floods is what they called them, but whatever they were I remember multiple stories about people losing their life by being swept down the creek because they didn’t get out of in time.

Of course my brother Bob led the way on our explorations down this quite monster. One story I always remember and love to tell is about one of my brothers good friends Jonathan Gambrell. A free spirit himself during those days we used to find some really great swimming holes that would be carved out of the sand during a flood and then disappear weeks later. Well on one particular Saturday John Gambrell, John Rampey one of my good friends, Bob and myself and maybe Nate Holland were all getting dressed in the woods near the creek to go swimming. There was a large tree that we had long abandoned a tree house in but was great for changing because it sat just off the creek so there was plenty of sand around it but still hidden because of the long drooping foliage that surrounded covered in Kudzu like everything was.

It was the best place to “Drop the shorts” to change into swim trunks and then run across the hot sand down into a swimming hole. The great thing was there was never anyone around, I would say that we were lucky to maybe run into 3 to 5 people the whole summer so changing like this was never a problem. So like we had done most every day that summer we all started changing into our swim trunks and throwing our jeans over a limb to keep them dry. I think most of us had just finished changing, all that is except for John Gambrell who was still mostly in the “nude”.  John was turned toward Bob looking up into the woods talking about something as all of us are standing there facing the creek. We were waiting for him to finish about to explode with laughter because as he is talking…3 girls from out of nowhere walk upon us. Where did these girls come from? I don’t have a clue but none of us were about to tell John who was giving them a full moon and once he noticed they were present it was even funnier watching him clamber into his shorts. The girls just laughed and walked on by, we never saw them again but nor did we ever forget John mooning all three of them standing in the middle of Saint Catherines Creek!

Yet another painting in my Grandmothers series. I am really glad that I am finally doing this for real. This is the third painting that I have posted by Ruth Gaynor my grandmother. If you are a current owner of one of her paintings please contact me with a picture and a little about how you came in contact with one of her paintings. I am hoping to be able to expand my collection of her paintings and would be willing to possibly purchase your Ruth Gaynor painting.

My goal is to one day be able to open an exhibit of her paintings.