Acrylic Paintings

This painting was a house warming gift for my daughter, who lives in Florida.My wife, went down to Florida to help her decorate the new house.They decided that a painting was needed to hang over the fireplace.

So my wife called me, and said we were going to give our daughter a painting as a house warming gift.I said, that would be fine, which one did they want? Her reply was "your going to paint some flowers, with the colors we need for the dining room" and they gave me the colors they needed in the painting.

There is a long story behind this painting. My wife was and still is an Elvis fan. We met Elvis while he was on his honeymoon. He was living on his ranch in Day, Mississippi. The news media didn't know where he was, so we were the only people outside of his close friends that knew where they were honeymooning. Elvis ask us to keep it a secret and of course we did, with the exception of telling a couple of our close friends, to which we just had to take with us to meet Elvis to prove that we were telling the truth.

We drove 618 miles from our house in Columbus, Ohio to his ranch in Mississippi, or his home at Graceland about five times in just a few months. We were able to meet his wife Priscilla, his Dad Vernon, and made friends with his Uncle Travis and a guard we knew as Mr. Peppers along with most of the other guards. When we would arrive, they would open the gate and let us in.

Most of the time there would be a crowd of people trying to see Elvis and when the guards let us in the fans would go wild, thinking we must be important people.

Little did they know, that I was just a struggling artist from Ohio trying to get to know Elvis, same as them.

I did the painting from a record album for display in the T.V. and Record Department at Sears. Later when we were done with the display I gave the painting to my wife on here birthday. In 2001 it was donated to our local Fire Station in Marion Village in Columbus, Ohio for the grand opening of their new station. The station is nicked named Elvis Station, because the firemen collect Elvis memorabilia to display and decorate the station with it.

This painting is a composite of images that I have collected. The background of distant tree line, swamp grass, and sky came from photos I had taken in Florida. The foreground water plants, rocks and tree roots are from the pond in my back yard. The last is the duck, which was from a photo taken in Carmel, California of a Sea Gaul. I liked the look of his landing so with all my photos of ducks, I converted the Gaul in a Duck.

I have always been patriotic, but after 9-11 and our space shuttle returning home in fire. I like many other artist across the country felt compelled to paint something to show the world the emotion, anger, and fear that was so much in us at that time. I felt it so much, I had an obsession to paint something patriotic. In this painting I see the miracle of life, the sacrifice for the country, and finally death.