"County Fair" has been delivered to a happy customer

I have just delivered the "County Fair." The customer appears very happy. As I have mentioned before, it has been a commissioned project for a client who wished to document his boyhood memories.

The 16 x 32 inch oil painting on canvas, is a recreation of a 1940's County Fair at the small Kansas, USA, town of Burden. To start project, I asked him to prepare a sketch map of the fairground area as he remembered. Then together we decided on a viewpoint. From this beginning the finished painting was developed, and now includes: the home stretch of a horse race in progress; a packed grandstand; a judges' tower; horse barns; a Ferris Wheel; a busy carousel; picnic grounds; crowds of people; and many details of a fairground midway.

The project was exciting because it required research as to conditions and styles in the late 1930's and early 1940's. Such things as clothing, dress lengths, hats, jockey clothing, horse tack, automobiles, trucks, and many other details required investigation, often using Google Images. As the painting developed, my client was able to add guidance from his memory.

Such paintings, memorializing a time period or event, are both challenging and interesting. Let us discuss such a painting for you.

My commissioned project to paint for a client an image of a County Fair, a new crowd scene project, is nearing completion. I have finished the actual painting process and a few days ago invited the client to again view the painting. He has accepted it with a couple of very minor corrections, and I will now let it thoroughly dry.

Next is the scanning step, followed by titling, tagging and then giving it a finished coating of medium to unify the surface finish.

The client should receive delivery of the painting in about three weeks.

Successful New Show

Through July 2009, I am the "Artist Of The Month" at Gallery 113 in downtown Santa Barbara. I am showing 12 paintings with a common theme of human "Interactions." A few are the same paintings I exhibited at my May 2009 show with a theme of "Memories from France and Mexico", but also includes several new paintings, not shown publicly before.

The theme "Interactions" may be defined as occurring when two objects have an effect upon each other. The idea of a two-way effect is essential – communication.

With the paintings exhibited in this show, I am continuing my basic explorations into the interactions between ordinary people in everyday settings. They are part of what I call my 21st century Genre figurative or "Social Realism" series.

Social Realism began around the turn of the 20th century and was fueled by the social conditions of that age. The movement reached its peak in the 1930's when American artists strove to be free of European artistic influences.

Many of those paintings, like mine, were bright and colorful, drawing in the viewer with their vibrancy. My paintings follow a more contemporary trend where this movement is being resurrected in figurative scenes.