Tribute to the Washington Nationals

 I finished my latest painting.  I haven't done a trompe l'oeil painting in quite a while because they are very time consuming.  Trompe l'oeil means fool the eye.  So everything must be painted the actual size and with as much realism as can be done. The idea of this trompe l'oeil came from a still life set up that Leigh Culver designed for classroom at The Art League. She had quite a few Trompe l'oeil set ups and they were all beautiful.  I loved the Nats. I tweaked it a bit, but the overall idea was her creativity.

 As for the process, each part of the painting is done before you can add things on top. The cork board was many layers of color and then all the little circles had to be done with a tiny brush.  The "wood" frame had to be painted tan, and then I did the woodgraining on top of the tan color. Each item took hours to get it just right.

I painted Ryan Zimmerman on the baseball card. They call him "Mr. National" due to the fact he was the Nationals very first draft pick, and he has played for them his entire career.

Last year was an exciting year for the Nats.  They made the playoffs and no one thought they would go any further.  But they did!  On to the World Series.  They won their first 3 games that were away, and they lost the next 3 games at home.  So the World Series came down to game 7, and it was an away game.  Washington DC went crazy when they won.
We love our Nats.  Hope you like this painting.  It was a labor of love.  Thanks, Leigh, for your inspiration.

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