I recently finished a commission for painting the property above which has such an interesting history. Both the home and barn were built during the American Revolution and was originally the poor farm for this area of Arlington, Vermont. The great-grandfather of the current owner took over the property during the Great Depression and he and his wife planted 22,000 trees here over several years. That man's son, when he owned it, was a friend of a local artist named Norman Rockwell, who came for dinner a few times. The young man who commissioned this really wanted that middle ridge of trees to somehow show a nod to the ones who planted all those trees there. So after much thought (and thanks to his short last name) I decided to roughly show the trunks and branches back there to spell out his name. Unless you look hard for it, you'll never notice but he loves that it is there. Then as a surprise to the commissioner, I used the little reflections in the pond at lower left to spell out his name in Morse Code, Read more on the execution of this painting in the "What's New" section of the website.
While I was in the Arlington area to photograph that property, I was very taken by the beauty all around such as the farm above (one of three paintings I did this month from this trip. I wanted to return soon with Julie to show it all to her so I went online looking for motels in the vicinity. The first to pop up was Norman Rockwell's house which is now a B&B! So of course, that's is where we stayed. A neat old (1792) home in a rural area that just screams Rockwell everywhere. Straight out from his front door is an 1804 church and beyond is an 1852 covered bridge and gorgeous old farms all around. (future paintings await) While there I saw several photos of Rockwell in and around the house and in his studio out back. So I had Julie shoot some pictures of me in the same spots to Photoshop myself into the room with him.
It almost felt like I got to meet my first art hero!
And here is a painting of that 1852 covered bridge just up the road from his place. There will be several more paintings result from this trip to Arlington.
Then later in the same week, I got a commission to paint a gentleman's wife and son with an old pharmacist. He said he wanted it to look like a Rockwell painting. What are the odds that in the space of one month, I'd have three connections like this?!