Old Friends

I recently got a note from a dear WordPress friend about my blog, and she got me wondering. How long has it been since I last posted? In I hopped and started looking back at a few recent entries … snicker … um … they’re not terribly recent. Sigh. All my good intentions of posting regularly, up in smoke yet again. I thought, well, is it time to try exercising those rusty-dusty creative-writing brain cells once more?

So here I am. And here’s my latest image … digitally hand painted using one of my own photos as a starting place. It’s over at my art website and if you click the image here, you’ll go right to the page it’s located on there.

By the way, speaking of my website, there’s a difference in the way I used to write up my descriptions to what I’m doing now. When we add new images, we’re encouraged to include a good descriptive paragraph. Over at Fine Art America, which also hosts my main “Pixels” website, they now offer the ability to let an AI thing write the paragraph. As much as I … well, let’s just say “question” AI, if the kinds of descriptions it produces increases traffic from Google or wherever, then I guess I’m on board. The following opening paragraph for “You Can’t Make Old Friends” is partly me and partly AI: “A vintage 1940s Chevy pickup truck is depicted with an abstract background of warm and earthy colors. The truck stands out with its distinctive rounded hood and rear flatbed, highlighting classic automotive design elements. The appearance of a sunset in the background adds to the feelings of nostalgia and time gone by.” So that pretty much sums up the looks of the piece, right?

To me though, with good art … something with some heart in it … there’s more to a description than just what it looks like. There could be the history of the location, information about the dog breed, or if nothing else, what the sunlight felt like on the day I took the photo. But for a moment, let me play my own devil’s advocate: adding more history or background to an image could be completely wrong and even off-putting to a viewer. A very legitimate argument could be made that any story in an image should be created in the mind of the viewer … that including thoughts and even feelings of the creator of the piece should never influence what other people see in it. And you know what? That’s probably completely valid. But with me, you usually get a story. Maybe it’s the mostly-dormant-but-still-trying writer in me??

I do hope I’m not shooting myself in the foot.

Anyway, after I added the Google-bait paragraph, that’s when I got a little nostalgic in my image description. Probably exactly what I shouldn’t have done.

Basically, I think driving by this old Chevy hit home harder than it otherwise would have. I recently donated my sweet 2001 Toyota Rav4, and made sure it went far away from where we live. I loved that car, but it was time to say goodbye. As many times as we dropped ‘er off at the repair place, I was never quite sure what would go wonky next or even if it would start … and that’s not cool when you’re on the wrong side of 70 and you’re hours from home. When your old car gets to the point where your repair bills are on par with a monthly payment for a new car, yeah it’s time for plan B. The good news is profits from the donation benefitted a local animal shelter. But boy, do I miss driving with a stick shift and clutch! Soooo when I saw this fabulous old Chevy looking all forlorn in the used car lot at “Bobby’s,” I couldn’t help imaging that he was also once dearly loved. Maybe someone had to pry his steering wheel out of the gnarled hands of an old local farmer who had memories and love invested in his baby, too.

I hand-painted Old Friends in Rebelle 8 Pro with their magical watercolor brushes and did so in a sketchy, loose and almost sloppy style deliberately … hoping to enhance and pay tribute to his jaunty self and to the years of hard work and joy and fun he most certainly provided his previous owner.

I hope I’ve done his spirit justice. It was painted with much love.