I know, I know… It is not autumn. I just liked this photo that I had taken of a barn across the road from us in Ohio. I took a lot of photos of that particular barn. It was always there, looking good, when I took Toby out for a walk. (Oh, I miss him…)
This past week, I decided to give painting outdoors another try. I have only done it one other time, in Ohio, in front of my garage of the field across the road. So, Ron agreed to accompany me and we loaded up and took my stuff to the clubhouse here in the park. This park has about three good sized lakes and one of them is across from the clubhouse. I looked around and decided to paint the clubhouse, so I set up and Ron set up the chairs and he sat down in the sunshine. I was under a big old oak tree. I got to painting. People rode by in their golf carts and cars and walked by. They all looked at me, but few said anything. One guy stopped and laughed and said, “That alligator really has his eye on you.” Then he took off. I looked around and didn’t see anything, so I just kept painting. We were out for about an hour and I decided that it was time to go. As we were packing up, Ron saw the alligator. We were on the edge of a small, dry retention pond. The alligator, which was about six feet long, was sunning himself on the other edge, about 50 feet away. He was well camouflaged by all the grass and stuff. We were glad to be on our way home. LOL! I don’t know if I will do it, again. Not because of the alligator, but because it is such a big job to get all my stuff set up and then to break it back down and load it up. We will see.
The years rolled their brutal course down the hill of time. Still poor, my clothes still smelling of the horse barn, still writing those doubtful poems where too much emotion clashed with too many words. — Paul Engle
exists to create art which reflects the beauty and the glory of God, to use art to comfort and encourage people, and to inspire others to pursue the arts. 