This is not to say that I am not artistic. \u00a0I enjoy doodling, and can draw basic cartoon characters. \u00a0If I focus and concentrate, I can do a reasonable sketch. \u00a0I took an art class that met weekly at a local craft store, and that taught me how to work with chalk pastels and walked me through producing a picture of an old barn next to a wooded stream.<\/span><\/p>\n These days my artistic side seems to have settled on photography as its preferred medium. \u00a0I do not claim to be highly proficient with my cameras, but I am proficient enough that I seem to have some consistent luck in my efforts. \u00a0I have, however, had at least some luck in other forms of art as well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Bee on Flower.<\/em> (Ink on Paperboard; circa 1993; 21″x18″). \u00a0Digitally restored.<\/span><\/p>\n This painting started as a scrap piece of paperboard that I was using to remove either excess black ink or a water-based paint from a sponge brush I was using for some other project. \u00a0I do not remember what the other project was; it really doesn\u2019t matter. \u00a0What does matter is that when I had finished with the other project, I looked at the paperboard and decided it would be fun to color in some of the regions with neon highlighters. \u00a0I let the ink dry and took it to my room and broke out the highlighters. \u00a0I\u2019m not sure that I had anything in mind as I was coloring it; I just filled in the areas that I thought would look best colored, and did so on an instinctual level. \u00a0As a result, I had an abstract painting that really didn\u2019t have an \u201cup.\u201d \u00a0It took some time to decide which way should be considered \u201cup,\u201d and really is a Rorschach test to determine what it is, if anything. \u00a0Eventually, I settled on the orientation seen below, and thought that it looked like a bee alighting on a flower (the \u201cbee\u201d being the oblong shape to the top and right, and the \u201cflower\u201d being the colorful mass to the lower left). <\/span><\/p>\n My dad liked the result so much he kept it around for years, although it never hung on a wall. \u00a0He found it again about twenty years after I had made it, in storage, where it had been since they moved to North Carolina, and where it had suffered some damage and fading. \u00a0He gave it to me while I was visiting them, and I took it home and set about making a digital version of it. \u00a0First, I set up some studio lighting and took a photo of it, and then I did some digital darkroom restoration to remove the damage and restore the faded colors.<\/span><\/p>\n The following Christmas, I was at a bit of a loss of what gift I should get for my father. \u00a0As I was going through my photos from the previous year, I came across the one where I had digitized this painting, and I knew that it was the perfect photo to make into a canvas print. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Because the Christmas celebration with my family was delayed for a couple weeks that year as we awaited the birth of my nephew, the presentation of the gift was rather informal. \u00a0The present was not wrapped; we did not have a formal gift-opening time that year. \u00a0I brought the print in from the car with the back facing my father (so that he couldn\u2019t see what it was) and said \u201chere you go. \u00a0Merry Christmas.\u201d \u00a0When I flipped the print over, I\u00a0could see the joy in my father\u2019s eyes. \u00a0This, for some reason, was his favorite painting. \u00a0It had disappeared for a while, damaged and forsaken. \u00a0But now it was back. \u00a0Restored to its original glory. \u00a0And there was a place for it. \u00a0It was hung almost immediately in an empty spot in the kitchen. \u00a0On the wall, not on the refrigerator.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The refrigerator is clearly any child’s art gallery. \u00a0Line drawings of houses and trees, mommys and daddys, suns with smiling faces and sometimes sunglasses – these are all things that typically adorn parents’ refrigerators. \u00a0Perhaps it was something that was done on a rainy day at home; perhaps it was something done in school. \u00a0All … <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/coolskill.org\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/01-IMG_0002-300x257.jpg\")
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