People keep asking how I come up with the ideas for my paintings. Alright, alright, already, I'll tell you! LOL. Here's Gladiator helmet and sword's inspiration:
I was out on our property next to our woodpile just throwing distance from our back door, chopping up some tree limbs for the weekly family campfire gathering. I placed a smallish limb that was too long on a stump, raised my axe, and chopped. The axe chopped through, but the end of the limb flew up and hit me right on the forehead! I stumbled back, fell through a large pile of brush and that’s the last thing I recall until I woke up to the sound of a huge crowd screaming and cheering.
I was really dazed and confused and I looked up and saw at least 10,000 people high up in a stadium. The stadium was huge and made of stone with a large arena area of sand and rock. I was lying on the ground at one end of the arena.
The crowd was really mean ‘cause they were screaming, “We will, we will rock you!” and waving their banners all over the place.
Towards the center of the arena, I saw a man in what looked like a gladiator costume holding a sword and running frantically. Not too far behind him I saw a huge male lion which was catching up to him and the crowd was throwing rocks at the guy! I had to look away.
I turned my head and I was staring into a tunnel that was just blackness leading who knows where. And right there, in front of my face, laid a beat up gladiator helmet and a sword. I stared at them for minutes it seemed, then whipped out my phone, took a photo and the next thing I knew, my wife was peering through the brush asking, “Are you ok?”
I smiled and told her I was and ran straight to my studio, excited to get this down on canvas. And thus came about this painting of the gladiator helmet and sword.
- Subject Matter: Still life
- Collections: Bold, Shadow and Light, Still Life