Rain on Main 2024: Potential

Water in a bottle. untapped vast power: Magical ability to bend light and reimagine reality. Necessary for life. So much more. How to portray that concept on a rain barrel? It’s like a genie: passive until it’s released. Yea! Glow in the dark paint. After dark the mysteries and dreams become visible. Thanks to the guys at Carmel Hazardous Waste and their UV light, you can see the genie!

Thank you Rain on Main. The show and auction is August 9-17.

Water in a rain barrel has so much potential: for growth (think agriculture and eight glasses a day) or destruction (think floods, erosion, waves), Even just sitting passively in a container, water bends, flips, reflects and breaks light into rainbows (as a visual artist this is attribute is so cool!). Water is a genie in the rain barrel.

My favorite part about painting this barrel was selecting and depicting the optical illusions of water in a container (so many Easter Egg moments!) and discovering glow paint for the Genie to appear. Miracles appear when we are in the dark. And, as always, the itsy bitsy spider.

Here are the finals snaps followed by the work in progress.

Awww bad shot: You can't see the firefly on the left. Nice foot portrait, though.

An umbrella or a flower...a nod to my first barrel.

What!? Love this glow paint! I need to invest in a UV light instead of painting in the dark.

In progress views. Things change. A pump is not really what happens with a rain barrel...

The sun started working on the barrel long before I started painting. Look at all the great inspiration!

Models waiting to be discovered and painted.