Bill’s Brother, Bob

Giclee Print on Canvas
Edition of 300 S/N
Image: 28″ x 22″
$300

I have been painting professionally for over 30 years now,  and while the work really never gets easier, I still try to have fun doing  it.  Anyone who has followed my work over the years has seen my subject  matter change from old barns, mills and interesting houses (which I still  love to paint) to decoys, guns and other outdoor artifacts, and on to  sports memorabilia (baseball is still my first love), fine wines, old toys  and always folk art.  Recently, I have gotten interested in carousel  animals, many of which were created by artists of incredible talent.  As  with most of my subjects, I do a lot of research and study before jumping  into the paintings and when I finally start one I get entirely wrapped up  in it, sometimes for two or three months which  it takes to complete a  major painting.

This piece was painted for a show at McBride Gallery in  Annapolis, Maryland.  The goat in the painting is from a turn of the  century Dentzel carousel; I had photographed it at an antique show 10  years ago and just stuck it in my ‘possibles’ file.  Cynthia McBride loves  “fun” funky pieces painted in my trompe l’oeil style, so I knew this would  be the perfect time to paint the goat.  I usually try to paint some pieces  that relate to the area where the show is, and since Annapolis is the  home of the Naval Academy, and the mascot is a goat named “Bill”, this was  perfect.  Bill, however, is an ivory, almost white color and his harness  and blanket are blue and gold.  The actual goat that I photographed is the  golden color that you see here, but his harness and saddle were green, so  I made up the patriotic color scheme (artistic license) and just for fun,  “Bill’s Brother, ‘Bob'” became the title.