I Never Painted K-Mart

Sleepy Time Inn - 28" x 20" - Watercolour 

Sometimes the title is in the painting, but hidden. The Sleepy Time Inn was a motel on the outskirts of Durham NC where you could rent a room for the afternoon. I stayed there once. By the time I painted it the new owners had changed its name to Travel Time Inn. I preferred its first name. The sign retains its original cloud shape and sleepy 'Z'. While I was photographing it from the 'Handy Andy' gas station / convenience store across the road I heard a tornado warning over the car radio hence the big black storm cloud. Ironically when a tornado finally came there was no advance warning. It destroyed K-Mart but left the Travel Time Inn untouched. Perhaps I should have painted K-Mart.

 

Big Star

Big Star - 28" x 21" - Watercolour

 

Sometimes the title for a painting is in the picture itself. At the time I painted this I was living in the USA. I was grocery shopping and had parked at the back of Big Star where there were always spaces. There was a big, old, broken down Ford and a dead tree against a concrete wall. I thought it would make a good painting. Not only a good painting but also somehow typical of my experience of living in the USA. I added the figure later. I didn't have a choice about the title, not when it was staring me in the face.