Railroad Festival Evening

Another view of the Vinegar Bend portion of downtown Amory, Mississippi looking in the opposite direction of the previous rainy day painting.  Our county does not have a county fair, but does host an annual event celebrating its railroad heritage every April.  This view is at twilight, when the last rays of the setting sun […]

Vinegar Bend Holidays

Another artist whose work fascinates me goes by the name of G. Harvey.  I tried imitating his complex skies in doing this portrait of a wet winter’s day during the Christmas season in our home town in Mississippi.  The original work hangs in the home of a retired doctor in our town.

Family Homestead

This is a promotional painting that I did as part of the nomination of our family heirloom mansion to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001. A  photograph of this house is posted elsewhere in my blog with additional notes.  The property did get listed on the register but fell into the wrong hands […]

Toledo Square

This view of the county seat where my father grew up shows the best-preserved quadrant of the town square.  The left most building is the most modern addition, using grey stone veneer to contrast with the architectural brick work on the rest of this segment of storefronts.  The building at the right end was originally […]

Raccoon Group

Another mixed media study using watercolors and ink.  The inspiration for this effort was a preacher telling of what he found in his garage when he wondered why his cats were always hungry even though the feed kept disappearing.

On the Road

I was inspired to attempt this cartoon with marker and ink for a friend and mentor who did a preaching tour with his wife through the upper mid-west during a summer when the weather was nice enough to drive most of the trip with the convertible top down.  I’m told that only a motorcycle ride […]

The Old Armory

This old building has recently been rehabilitated to enjoy a second life as a community center.  Its concrete construction also makes it sturdy enough to serve as a storm shelter.  I captured this view standing under a lone dogwood tree across the street early on a spring morning .

Porch Preacher

This is one of a series that I did commemorating our church history in the South.  I don’t consider myself a proficient at painting people as I do landscapes, but still take on the challenge from time to time.  The inspiration for this effort was the stories told by an old retired preacher of the […]

Old 1529

This retired steam locomotive is parked in Frisco Park near the city hall in Amory, Mississippi.  This engine’s greatest claim to fame came when it pulled a train of 14 cars through Amory, one of which held as passengers President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor, who were en route to Tupelo for a […]

Heading Home

My ancestral home place is located on U S Route 40 in east central Illinois.  Both U S Routes 66 and 40 traverse the state.  Even though Route 66 has more folk lore, Route 40 actually has more history.  It’s known as the Old National Road, America’s first paved highway running from Maryland to Vandalia, […]