Thirty Days Downtown

Thirty Days Downtown started as a way to force me to do 30 paintings in 30 days, en plein air (painting on location), of my hometown, Newnan, GA. I grew up less that half a mile from downtown, but my days were spent in downtown working for my dad at The Print Shoppe, eating candy from Kesslers, hanging out with my Dad at the Times-Herald and Brothers, charging grilled pimento cheese sandwiches at Lee-King and roaming the alleyways. My story is not unique, but my perspective is. Sometimes when you exist in a place, you just don't see it anymore... and I had stopped seeing downtown Newnan.

The challenge was to capture what inspired about the city as a painter, and a lot of that is what fascinated me when I was a boy. You will not see many buildings, shops or offices to in this collection, just a rare glimpse inside inside my head and to get a chance to see what I think is beautiful about my hometown downtown.

I had no trouble coming up with thirty paintings, I could paint hundreds more, my only problem was finding time to paint more of them en plein air... so, I will just have to do that another time!

The bridges, railroad tracks, ageless alleys, steeples, water tanks, the looming courthouse, cemeteries, and the fog.

The Thirty Days Downtown started on August 20th and will conclude with the showing and sale of the work at ArtWalk on September 20th at The Redneck Gourmet on the court square in downtown Newnan.

This was a locals only show, and has come and gone. It was marketed on Facebook and Instagram only. The following thirty posts are the pieces that were in the show.