My Fave all-time painting

An oil on board, it's a painting of the sidewalk outside his home in the late 1970s on Lockyer Street, a little one-block street tucked behind the Hyland Cinema and all the houses are of that red rug-brick 'between the wars' variety. I live in such a house and know that view very well from sitting on the steps to my own porch. The cracked sidewalk, the early morning sunlight, the still remaining bits of dew on every one of those individual blades of grass.

When telling the man how much I loved this particular painting, he reminded my that it's all about the lighting and that "It's not a painting of a sidewalk, per se."

And you know something, "per se" is the only 'artsy' thing I ever heard come out of the guy's mouth.

This painting was done in the mid-1980s. He eventually stopped doing the 'realism' paintings altogether so he could concentrate on the 'Neighbours' style paintings. And when you think about it, why not? He summed up everything you need to know about life in this rendering of one of those quiet moments in one's existance right here.