Why Do I Love To Paint?

This past Christmas, my mom and dad gave me this great photo album. When I saw it I was hoping the album was already loaded. To my extreme delight - it was. They had scanned old family photos and newspaper articles. They included wonderful stories that need to be remembered not only by me but by my children and grandchildren.

I want to share some "evidence" of what I already knew. I used to wonder why I had no interest in nursing or bookkeeping.

Why do I love to paint?
Well, it would seem that "it is in my blood".

This is a picture of my mom when she was a child.

My grandad painted this mural. I don't have any photos of him painting anything. But, I know that he was also a sign painter. He would very carefully letter on glass doors and office windows and then very carefully (while the paint was still wet) blow very fine gold powder onto the letters creating very elegant and impressive lettering. He would sign his work "Venable, of course!"

Check out the panties on my momma.

Probably made of sugar sacks.

I love this picture. My mom is keeping my dad company while he paints a landscape on the panels of the truck. I remember him painting on lots of things. There was an old car that had a rounded trunk. The trunk had a dent in it and he painted a landscape with a waterfall. The waterfall tumbled right over that dent.

When I look at this photo of my dad, I can see my brother and my middle son, Josh in him. It's amazing. That's me in the foreground.

And this is my grandma (dad's mom). She started painting in her latter years. She painted beautiful seascapes. Her second husband, my step-grandad was also an artist. I am not sure what she is working on in this photo but you can see from the easel board that this was not her first painting. She lived in California. When I was 5 years old, I remember living there for a little while. Actually, what I remember is Disneyland. My parents were sidewalk artists at Disneyland.

My mom and dad both still paint. They had some wonderful pieces. I will post some recent pictures of them in a day or so.