Executive, Trooper and Swan

A Mercedes driving business man, a twenty year Massachusetts State Trooper and a swan crossed paths on a Spring afternoon on Route 3 in Duxbury, MA near Exit 11.

The executive was a stressed but benevolent animal lover who noticed the wayward swan strutting dangerously close to the highway shoulder.  Within a split second of buzzing past the former ugly duckling in his Mercedes, the man pulled into the breakdown lane and screeched to a stop.    This week had been full of events he couldn't control, and he didn't like it.   Maybe he could score a small success at the side of the highway.

He threw the car into reverse and rumbled back along the highway in the breakdown lane toward the swan.    Just as the executive emerged from his vehicle, a Massachusetts State Trooper pulled over to assist.   The trooper assumed the man in the suit had a disabled vehicle.   The executive grinned at the trooper then looked at the swan which was now waddling southbound in the grass, the backdraft from each vehicle whizzing by ruffling the feathers of the swan ecru. 

The trooper started trailing the swan which seemed determined to walk onto the highway.   The executive hoped that the trooper had received training for such circumstances at the police academy, because he knew he had no fresh ideas to offer.   The trooper's body language hinted that maybe he hadn't - thumbs now in his pockets and giving sheepish looks toward the mystified motorists passing by.

The executive and trooper were relieved when the audible overhead honking of the swan's mate convinced the highway walker to also take flight.     This was a life saving adventure story that the two men may not readily admit to, but felt good about nonetheless.

Unusual scenes present themselves often enough to provide ample ideas for paintings.  I witnessed the scene I described, albeit with my verbose embellishment above.   What other explanation could there be?

Thumbnail Sketches - Memory Aid

When I got home I did a some small sketches of the scene so as to remember the placement (and the idea itself).

I turned to Google image search to obtain pictures of each of the elements of the scene, the trooper, the cruiser, the Mercedes, the swan, etc..   I pulled each of the picture elements into a Word document, then I resized each of the pictures to an approximate, relative size using the inches ruler on the left margin.    

Paper Collage

I printed out the Word Document, then cut out the pictures.  Here is my very crude paper collage in which the pictures are pieced together providing some semblance of my painting-to-be.

Ordinarily I wouldn't give a blog update halfway through a small painting, but since we are going on vacation, here is the painting at the halfway (at the most) status.

Executive, Trooper, and Swan - Session 1

Stay tuned for more updates on this one.   For one thing I promise to fatten up the State Trooper, and of course, add the original story hero, Mr. Businessman.