Title: Sunny Side Up
Medium: Acrylic and hard pastel on 100% rag paper
Size: 30" wide x 22" tall
Year: 1996/97
Image Inspiration:
The breakfast place setting is the center of this
universe and the land over which the sun rises and the clouds
billow. The rooster is crowing a rainbow of sounds toward the
rising sun. A baby chick investigates a slice of melon.
This is the companion painting to the piece, Rise and Shine.
Here's an excerpt from my book, Paint
Happy, page 61, explaining the incident that inspired me to
create this image and Sunny Side Up:
"Believe it or not, this painting wasn't created entirely from imagination. It was inspired by an old memory of my first night alone in an old ranch house. During the dark early morning hours I heard loud animal noises inside the house. There were no lights, so I decided to keep my head under the covers and wait until the animals left. Once the early morning sun began to light the room, I peeked out from under the covers and saw a clucking chicken standing on the foot of my Bed! A tall rooster with a colorful tail was perched on the dining room chair by the picture window, and about six chickens were scratching the wooden floor and kitchen counter tops. Apparently, there was a hole in the outside wall under the kitchen sink, and the chickens came in looking for breakfast!
More than a decade later, I took the best part of that memory -- the comical surprise ending to my dark fear fantasies -- and turned it into this painting. The rooster is crowing a rainbow of sounds toward the rising sun. My bed is the center of this universe and the land over which the sun rises and the clouds billow. This image captures a happy lesson about fear and worry."
This painting is for sale through High Desert Gallery.
