Forgive me in advance. I know this is a long winded story. Don't even know if should be posted here, but it IS sorta 911 related and I just thought more of you would see it as i'm affraid of the OT section.
Just thought I'd post a pic of a watercolor painting I finally completed last night. In the past I had done some artwork for Bob Snodgrass at Brumos Porsche. Not sure how many of you had the opportunity to have met him, but he was very nice to me and really wanted to help give my automotive art career a big boost.
I had done the painting of Brumos' 550 RSK (see avatar at left) and Mr Snodgrass called me to do some more work for him. I was asked too come down and look at some cars. As I wandered around the private museum there at Brumos Porsche (by myself for a while THEN w/ Hurley Haywood!!!!! What a great memory) I was asked by Mr Haywood to pick out a few cars I might be interested in painting. I thought they all deserved to be painted! When Mr. Snodgrass came in he asked what cars interested me and which ones I thought I would want to paint. I was a bit overwhelmed (it wasn't just Brumos Porsches in there....they have a bit of everything) and asked him which one HE really liked. Out of all the cars he had in there he walked me over to a MG TC. He explained to me that it was the car he had learned how to drive in. It was the car he had gone to his first race w/ his father in. I believe that was Watkins Glen. It was also the first car he had raced. He was so proud of that car he made me feel under the fenders and had me look it all over to show me how nice it was. He said it had never been in an accident or damaged in any way. I was sold. I told him I thought it would make a great painting. It's a great car. So he gathered up a couple guys in the race shop and we pushed it outside across the parking lot and on to a small area of grass. I snapped a bunch of photos and told him i'd print them out and we could look at them and decide which shot he liked best. He told me "Your the Artist. I trust you".
After picking out the the right pic I started work on the painting. I was very excited as he had told me the last time we spoke that he could keep me busy with my automotive art. I worked on it off and on for the next few weeks. I actually worked on it fairly leisurely as he said he was in no rush and he knew "how you artists were". I had no deadline. In fact the only thing he requested of me was to make the NY Elmira license plate (his hometown) read "EL 59" in honor of the Brumos 59.
I was about 25% done w/ the painting when I was in a Barnes and Noble book store looking at a Porsche mag. The gentleman next to me was looking at one as well and said "pretty sad news about Bob Snodgrass wasn't it?" I looked at him and had no clue what he meant. He said he had passed away the day before.
I always regret the fact that I didn't finish the car that was so important to him before he passed. I think he would have liked it. He told me it was the most important car in the museum as far as he was concerned. After he passed I just put the painting away unfinished until recently. I decided I would finish it and give it as a gift to the Snodgrass family.
For some reason the pic I took didn't come out that great. It's like it was taken w/ a fisheye lens or something. Even the straight lines at the edge of the painting were curved....wierd. I'll take some better pics when it gets matted and framed.
Here it is ....
