Earlier in the week, I posted an unusual grouping of Chinese porcelain and Layer Cake wine...and in the background, Raggedy Ann looked on with a puzzled expression.  Well, here is the finished watercolor, "Birthday Cake."  
Michael and Pam McKay, the owners of The Art Cellar are celebrating 20 years in business...pretty incredible when you think about what has gone on in our economy during that time.  Liz Brown, the galley director, and Pam "commissioned" their artists to "create a cake" for the birthday.  I just couldn't see myself painting a real cake, although I can whip up a pretty darn good pizza pie.
So, I took one of my favorite wines, Layer Cake, one of my favorite painters, Winslow Homer--Artist and Angler, and arranged for them to meet some characters from China, a nice box and some pears and pomegranates in a nice pottery bowl.  I changed all of the "vintage" dates to 1992 on the bottles (20 years ago) and voila!  
I hope you enjoy...I hope Pam and Liz and Michael enjoy...as for me, I've got a date with Raggedy Ann and a couple of bottles of Layer Cake!

Painting Day...the look on Ann's face is...puzzled? Stay tuned!

We have all heard the bit of wisdom...good things come in small packages...well, I uploaded a couple of new paintings today (with more to come).  By comparison to my more recent paintings, these are small--6x9 and 7x9--but the funny thing to me is they seem to take the same amount of time and brush strokes.  Of course they take less pigment and paper, but the brushes used to create them are smaller than the ones I usually use.
Above, "Road to Grandfather" depicts a partially cleared road inside our homestead that winds around throughout the compound at about 4300 feet above sea level.  The blue lacy shadows weave their way across the road and fade into the stand of rhododendron, birch and spruce on the right side of the road.  Somewhere up ahead, over a few more hills and around a few more turns is the most beautiful mountain in all of North Carolina.

"Shawneehaw" is named after the creek that runs through Banner Elk, NC.  I found this fisherman wading in the creek one day before the BIG Avery County Paint Out.  I was doing some research for my attempt at plein air painting and found him stalking the wild rainbows that hide in and around the boulders at the left of the painting.  It is hardly seen from the busy road ( NC Hwy 184) that also bears the name and runs along side of the creek into and out of Banner Elk.  
You're probably asking yourself..."what is the origin of the word and what does it mean?"  Well, I Googled it...and wordnik.com says, "the larger withe-rod."  I thought it would be a native-American word for "meandering creek with tall grasses" or something...regardless, it also points out that Shawneehaw is not a valid Scrabble word...who knew?  Enjoy.