Ketchup In Progress: Day One

12 x 24 oil on hardboard panel

It's been so long since I actually painted that I feel a bit like Rip Van Winkle just awakened and it may take a little while to get my sea legs back. The last few weeks have been filled with the holidays, unexpected dental work, snow and lots of photography, so it's definitely not been a vacation. It does feel really good to have a brush in my hand again, and I'm looking forward to working on some of my new images.

I've been a fan of Ralph Goings since forever and I always loved his paintings of diners and particularly his still life paintings of condiments on the counter. These nearly always included bottles of Heinz Ketchup . . . so, I wanted to try one myself as a sort of homage. The problem is you can't buy Heinz Ketchup in those bottles any longer, so finding one presented a problem. Fortunately a local diner, The OK Cafe (one of our favorite places to eat) still has them on the tables, and the staff there was kind enough to give me two empty bottles (cleaned up nicely) at no charge. All I had to do was fill them up again. Above is the first day's work, and I'll continue to put up a series of images as the piece progress's.