A guy walks into an art gallery...

There is a huge construction site across the street from my studio; we have watched the old building come down, complained about the construction trucks taking up all the street parking and seen them haul in gigantic concrete slabs and hoist them into place (why a theatre needs concrete slab walls, I don't know, but it sure looks bullet-proof to me). It never occurred to me that the workers might be watching us painters slaving away in the studio, until one of them walked into the studio last week. Turns out he and his wife had a brand new baby, and he wanted to know if anyone could paint a picture from a photo he had on his phone. The guy was clearly enraptured by his new daughter and had a lovely photo of his wife and daughter taken a few hours after the baby's birth. I don't do portraits, but I thought, why not? Today he came in and took the painting home to give his wife for Valentine's Day. Sometimes it doesn't feel stupid to be an artist...

20x16" acrylic on canvas