I spilled a cup of coffee on my keyboard last Sunday night. Not only was it stained with decaf Americano, but the letters “d” and “s” are unresponsive. I couldn’t get into my iMac, so I reached for my paints, canvases, boards, watercolor paper, and other artists’ accouterments in my corner art studio. I’ve decided to put down my pen and pick up a brush.
I have regularly painted since 2014. I created an art blog for my paintings called Theos Art Space. Theo’s Art Space is a website I designed to document my journey into art. Theo is the name I use to sign my artwork. Theo was inspired by the name of our favorite coffee shop and Vincent Van Gogh’s brother’s name.
However, my painting fell to the wayside when I decided to turn my blog writing into The Trump Files. Although I worked on a canvas year ago in April, I hadn’t painted anything since August 2020. The final two year push to turn my blog into a book was intense, especially during Trump’s last year in office, and then the aftermath of the attack on the nation’s capitol.
I intend to write on my blog about the civil and criminal cases being brought against Donald Trump at the state and federal levels. In the last page of The Trump Files, I cautioned that we must prepare for a return of Trump to the campaign trail for the 2024 presidential election.
I wrote:
The Trump Files revealed the wide range of harm brought on American democracy, human rights, science, and public health by Donald Trump and his administration. Unfortunately Donald Trump is advancing the Big Lie with support from a large group of sycophants in the United States Congress and millions of followers from around the country. Imagine it is 2024, and at the RNC, Donald Trump becomes the party’s nominee for president again for the third time. Recall that Lawrence Douglas wondered if Trump would leave the White House no matter what the outcome of 2020 election. Douglas asked, “Will he go?”476 Now the question is: Will he run? According to many journalists and political scientists, the likelihood is that Trump desires to run again. That Trump could be elected president again and return to the White House will in my opinion be the third existential threat facing the world.
Hassard, Jack. The Trump Files (p. 465). Northington-Hearn Publishing LLC. Kindle Edition.
Pen to Brush
Today’s painting is a rock climber, acrylic on canvas board, 9 inches x 12 inches. It’s based on a photo I found online years ago in the UK. In my 30’s, I learned to repel off not-very-high rock faces in NC. I never was dare-devil enough to become a climber. Could my rock climber in the painting be a repeller?
The truth is I never was a rock climber. But I was a hiker, backpacker, and jogger, long ago in the Rockies. However, I did do repelling in the mountains of North Carolina.
For this painting I used a variety of flat and round brushes and a small pallet for mixing colors, as well as to create the mountains, hills, valleys and edges of rocks.
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