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Me painting last Wednesday.
"Happy Day, II" - 9" x 12" - Oil on Panel

I found this photo of me on the Peninsula Art School's Facebook Page. It's posted under the heading for the Quick Paint, which took place on Saturday morning - two days ago. I was happy to see it for sure, but it wasn't my 2011 Quick Paint. I did this one late afternoon on Wednesday, in Fish Creek's Clark Park. Several artists had signed up to paint in Clark Park that day, but I wasn't one of them. Friends called to tell me they were painting there, so I met them. That day was the hottest day of the festival, and I had a cooler filled with cold water and diet 7-Up. I passed that around and made them all happy.

As I walked around checking out the other artists, I was excited and pleased to see my odl friend, Happy Day, a white boat with a turquoise interior. Five year's ago it was sitting in the water, this year it was shoved up out of the water and resting in some tall grass. I walked all around that area to see if I could get a good location to paint it. Finally I thought, I'd go to the spot where I'd seen it for the very first time, a small strip of concrete on the side of the marina. It gave me a side view of the boat, and the best view of it that I saw.

Much to my surprise, I had the pleasure of finding a very fine artist named Neil Sherman working on a painting with Happy Day in it. I'd not seen Neil since the 2007 Inaugural Door County Festival Quick Paint.

It was interesting to me that I found him there because, after five years, we were meeting in almost the exact same spot where I'd last seen him - near Malibu Moo's, behind the kayaks. We'd both found something that first year that we wanted to paint, but we'd have been in each other's line of site, and Neil was gracious enough to let me have that piece of real estate for the 2007 Quick Paint. It is a nice place to hide.

I wasn't trying to hide that time or this, but those kayaks offered some much needed shade. And of course, Happy Day just happened to look great from there!