My first 'Commission' painting

I took a stab at my father's childhood home and it came out better than expected. Yay, right?

I had a pretty idyllic childhood. I wish I’d realized that in the moment, I would have stressed less! Everything seems sort of hard when you’re going through it, and then looking back, you can see that your troubles weren’t mountains, just little tiny speed bumps.

My mother and father have known each other since grade school, so both sets of grandparents were in the same town - Washington, in Wilkes County, GA. If you’ve read my earlier substack, Library Roulette Win, you already know about the Mary Willis Memorial Library. But there’s a lot MORE to that little town, so read on. Painting to come. ;)

Here’s the tagline from the town’s webpage - I mean, even if I didn’t know about this beautiful little place, I’d want to visit. Imagine yourself in a place where the tide of the American Revolution began turning, where the Civil War effectively ended, and where the American dream has flourished since. Don’t just imagine it. Experience Washington for yourself.

See what I mean?

To quote the Starship Troopers movie, Do you want to know MORE? Then here is a great write up on the history with more photos from the Gallagher’s Travels blog.

My mother’s parents lived in town, in the family home built in the 1840s. There were columns, a big, wide front porch with a swing and rocking chairs, screen porches, sleeping porches, a dining room big enough for the extended family, a living room AND a parlor with a piano. (Both of my grandmothers were musical.)

My grandmother had a vegetable garden, flower garden, berry bushes and even a small pecan grove in the very back. The house smelled of homemade bread, green plants and pink calamine lotion. (This could just be my personal memory - mosquito bites galore, they loved me, and I had pink calamine dabbed all over my chubby child body every summer.) The pantry off the kitchen smelled like pepper and cinnamon. There were jars of homemade watermelon rind pickle back in the dark corners.

My grandfather’s room had the biggest standing floor fan I’d ever seen, along with an spinning electric shoe polisher, one end a bright fluffy red. He was a banker, and worked three blocks away on the main street through town. Even better, both of my great aunts also lived in the house and taught me to play card games, hopscotch and marbles.

My father’s parents lived about four miles out of town on the Augusta Highway, as it was called then. They built their home when they moved from Thomson, GA to Washington, GA. The house had a huge stone fireplace in the living room, pine paneled walls, a little snug by the kitchen where you could read books or watch TV by the tiny fireplace, and master bedroom downstairs, with three bedrooms upstairs for the grandkids. My father attended West Point, my uncle The Citadel, and I was fascinated by the big, tall, military parade hats in their old closets.

My grandfather worked as a teacher, then school principal, then school superintendent. He had names for all of us - Little Rabbit, Raccoon, Possum - and always made sure there was a square glass jar full of little Hershey candy bars on the mantel of the fireplace in the snug. Bookcases on either side of the fireplace held my father’s and uncle’s old books - The Hardy Boys, and the Princess and the Goblin are the ones I remember the best. And stacks of National Geographic magazines in the closet. Their house smelled like biscuits and sausage, with a little cigarette smoke teasing from the little kitchen table where my grandfather worked the crossword puzzle every day.

My parents cleverly offloaded one child with the grandparents for a WHOLE WEEK, all by our lonesome. There were MANY cousins, so getting quality time where I was the center of attention - well, let’s just say I liked it. A LOT. We drove to Abbeville to go to a huge old antique shop and eat at a Mennonite bakery, or to Sharon to see relatives and ride the old train. One day I had my first convertible ride in my uncle’s little red MG. Good times. I wish I could remember more, but childhood sort of sweetly ebbs from memories to feelings at some unknown point in time.

ANYWAY, the painting.

There are several paintings of my mother’s house in Washington proper, but only photos of my father’s house in the country. One hangs on the wall of my parents’ bedroom but I couldn’t get all the detail I wanted from that one. My aunt luckily had another photo taken from a different angle and a different season. So I cheated a little and combined them.

(When you see the finished product, I think you’re going to say WHAT details, it’s all very impressionistic. Umm, true, I must agree.)

Here are the photos:

The far left was my grandfather’s shop, the little area behind the french doors is where my grandmother painted china and played the piano and the main part of the house had the bedrooms and living areas. There was a huge stone terrace in the back where my grandfather would grill hamburgers, and you could walk to a creek, where I once found an arrowhead in the clay. It was the definition of cozy, warm and comfortable. But BOY was it dark out there at night.

So here’s the progression of the painting:

As you can see, I struggled with the chimney and sky, but finally figured, what the heck, go BOLD, as my art teacher would say. So the final product (see below) has a bit of that expressionist startle, as I call it. I cranked up the sunbeam action on the trees. And I managed to make the pale yellow of the snow look more like sunbeams and less like one of their big Weimeraner dogs had marked their territory. At least, I hope so.

Voila! With a flourish. I thought I was done. Note my signature in the right corner. (If you didn’t know it already, Fraulein Zen is a pseudonym. Um, PRETTY sure you knew, right?)

I showed it to my parents, since my father had requested it, and my mother said it’s GOO-OOOD - with a slide - but I think it would look HAPPIER if there was a light in the window. Wait, WHAT? It’s perfect, what the heck are you talking about, it looks like the house in the picture. Please, do not criticize my amazing painting!

Damned if she wasn’t right. Don’t you hate that? My mother has the knack, for sure. It does look like the cozy house I remember. Probably shouldn’t have added that red to the other areas, but it is so HARD to only change one thing when you put on your painting apron and load up the paintbrush. I need to work a bit on artistic restraint. Maybe. ;)

Next time, my first real nocturne, the old town square hotel in the same wonderful town of Washington, GA. My painting inspirations seem to be childhood and happy times in Germany so far. Don’t worry, I branch out. ;)