Rainy Day

 

What a difference a little rain can make. We've been waiting for significant moisture for the better part of three months. Waking up to a steady shower and the robins happily hunting for worms on the grass was so pleasant. 

While we are in the downsizing and packing process, I continue to paint every day. As I fully anticipate being without a studio for a period of weeks later on this summer, I'm cherishing every extra minute I get in Birdsong Studio 2.0. I finished two paintings this morning while listening to the rain.

"Stand Tall" is a 20" x 30" acrylic on canvas. I'm grateful to my friend Jessica for providing its title. I had spent a number of days experimenting with the foliage in the background and deciding to add a single offset birch. 

I've been on a tear painting presidents for some inexplicable reason.  Truman, Nixon, Ford, Clinton and Roosevelt have all happened in the last week.  This morning, I finished up Lyndon Baines Johnson, or LBJ as he was known.

Each has their own history, which I think about as I paint them. Johnson took over from Kennedy after he was shot in Dallas. He has always seemed to me to be a bull in a China shop, loud, overbearing and authoritarian. Listening to a historical podcast I learned that he was also a consummate politician and statesman. He had an ability to get the votes and get bills passed.  In that sense, the current president possesses a similar skill set.  Johnson's legacy includes the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts. He is also known for prioritizing the containment of communism which manifested itself in the cold war and the conflict in Vietnam.