The Art of Colby Jones
Another grandkid request:
“What do you want me to draw?”
“Darth Vader!”
“What do you want him to be doing?”
“Fighting a good guy.”
I started throwing out mundane alternatives like, “How about Darth Vader eating macaroni and cheese?” “How about Darth Vader hopping up and down on one foot?” “And eating macaroni and cheese?” We’d giggle and then come up with other things just as silly. We finally settled on Darth Vader taking a bath.
When my son was much younger he’d pull up to my chair and ask me to draw something. What would you like me to draw? It was almost always, “two monsters fighting.” Then he would intently watch as my imagination would try to conjure something worthy of his curiosity. Over time we came up with a wide variety of creatures fighting in various modes of mortal combat. Most of those ad lib sketches didn’t survive. Of the ones that did this one was a little different and I have to admit it is my favorite, although it doesn’t look like much of a fight.
Ink on paper, 8 1/2″ X 9 1/2″
After the anxiety of courtship it’s nice to settle into a more comfortable partnership.
This is not a new mural but it has an interesting story. A few years after I painted it for my niece, my sister’s family moved away and sold the house, mural an all. A couple of days later I got a call from my former college roommate. He began to describe the mural to me over the phone. Turned out his sister-in-law had bought the house from my sister and he had recognized my work.
Almost twenty years later I got another call from my ol’ roommate. That family was moving but had deep regrets because they would have to leave the mural behind after raising several kids in that room.
That’s me in the mid stages of painting a mural in a nursery room. The mural covers three full walls. You can see part of one wall which has a desert theme, sort of. Each wall works into the next one. The castle wraps around the three sides of the column.
Acrylic and latex paints. Nursery Room, 9′ ceilings
