1964 Classics

I was asked by a friend to paint these two classics.  The fun part, was that these were contrived from very limited photos and verbal memories of these favorite first cars of her parents.  When her parents fell in love, they both had these cool cars.  These paintings were painted as a matching set to be framed and hung together as a symbol of fond memories from days gone by.  

The GTO was especially gratifying to paint due to the amazing chrome on this grill.  Both these cars are 1964 models (the Mustang is a '64 and a half).  Even though neither car was ever mine, painting them, I couldn't help but infer all of these great experiences young people have in their first cars.  

Painting these cars was a lot of fun.  In fact, I've decided that I'll start offering some custom paintings for people that have great memories in their cars, but no longer have the cars around.  I think I'll do a painting of my first and favorite truck - a 1979 Ford High Boy.  Oh, the memories and trouble I made in that truck!  I want a painting of it hanging on my wall to make me smile each time I pass by.  

If you're interested in having a painting of a favorite car, please reach out!  I have a lot of time on my hands right now.  

 

The Venice of Portugal

 Although somewhat of a stretch, Aveiro is known as the Venice of Portugal.  It's a really cool town near the Atlantic coast a few hours north of Lisbon.  We made multiple trips there for weekend getaways and we fell in love with the place.  They call it the Venice of Portugal because the town is covered in a network of canals that used to be used for dredging seaweed that was turned into  fertilizer and harvesting salt.  Today both of those industries have long since died, but the canals and the boats are used to take tourists around town.  

I had so much fun painting this scene.  I remember walking past this boat and seeing the reflection in the water and thinking to myself - "That would be really fun to paint" and snapped a picture.  I was right, it was super fun to work the paint to make this reflection.  

Nearby Aveiro is possibly our all time favorite place to visit.  It's little known and not highly visited by tourists, but we visited many times drawn to the cute little housed that lined this fisherman's town shoreline.  This is Costa Nova, Portugal and is a close neighboring town to Aveiro, so whenever visiting Aveiro for a boat ride, we almost always stayed the night and spent some beach time in Costa Nova.  I guess I need to get a painting done of this cute little town.  

  I miss Portugal very much.  Painting scenes from this beautiful country helps me self medicate from a good Portuguese case of "saudade".  I love you Portugal!  

The Cool Little Surf Town of Ericeira

One of our favorite places to visit here in this cool little town of Ericeira.  My good friend (and Portuguese language teacher) Jose introduced our family to this great town.  The first time I visited, Jose has agreed to take me and my visiting parents to see the town and get lunch at his favorite seafood restaurant.

After a very pleasant tour of the town, we ended in this quaint little plaza.  The plaza seemed to be a preserved time capsule and suddenly I imagined the town a few hundred years ago.  There were 17th century buildings and tiles all around us and I had a bit of a time warp experience there.  As I've visited Ericeira since, this beautiful, historical intersection is special and I love to go back to it.  I painted this scene of the spot and have given this painting to Jose as a thank you note for his friendship and the great tour he gave me and my family.

'58 Shades of Chrome

I've always been one of those people that has been infatuated with antique cars but never had the money or guts to own one.  That has never stopped me from painting them though!  I had a great time painting this "58 Cadillac.

As I painted this, I thought of our next door Portuguese neighbor, Antonio.  

He and his wife are such nice people and we've befriended them over the last few years.  They, like us, enjoy gardening, so we often exchange produce from our gardens. They are a retired couple and he's had a passion for antique cars his whole life - especially American models.

 Most weekends, he opens up his garage and drives out a few of his favorites.  He has a basement garage under his house where he parks, tinkers with and fully restores his collection.  One day, he invited us down into his garage and I was so excited to see all the different models.  The one that I was thrilled to see (and honestly had never heard of) was a BMW model that they started making with an airplane cockpit and a small two stroke motorcycle engine.  The thing opens on the front - I mean that the windshield and dash board (including steering wheel) hinge open to allow the driver and passengers to climb in.  So cool!

 I was so excited to show him my painting of the Cadillac and give him the painting that reminded me of him.  When I came to his door, he was so complimentary of my painting but when I told him I was giving him the painting, he almost got emotional.  He invited me down again into his garage and I snapped the picture below of him holding my painting in front of his '38 Citreon.  I love giving my art away to people who I share connections with!  It's so fun!