Del - The Fix-it Man

For those who are new to my blog, I do this in part as a way of journaling,
but it's also a place for me to store photos of my art.
I begin each blog with my art and try to relate it in some way to what I'm writing about,
but sometimes, like today, it's a stretch of the imagination.
This painting is from a page in a book I'm illustrating about Del when he was 6 years old.
Because there's a John Deere tractor in the painting, I'm using it for my post today!

Del – the fix-it man! For the last little while Del has mowed the lawn about 3 times in 3^rd gear. It got stuck in “fast gear” and he couldn’t use anything else, including reverse. After tearing the lawn tractor apart, he came to a conclusion of what might be the problem. So he stopped at some businesses and called around to find the parts or see what others would charge to fix it. Bottom line, it would cost $1000 if everything goes well, but our model is so old that the parts aren’t even available! He secretly thought: “Hurray!! I can go buy my dream John Deere tractor!!” But being the fix-it man that he is, I think he just couldn’t leave it alone without at least trying “one more thing.” Whatever that “thing” was, he’s got it running again! I think he’s slightly disappointed. I’m thrilled. His dream tractor costs $2500. Yah! Money saved! What can we buy instead?!! 😉

Del in the garage between two cars trying to fix the tractor!

It's fixed! Time to assemble the parts and put it back together!

Birthday and Christmas Tags

Teresa asked if she could buy some birthday tags with the words "Feliz Cumpleanos" and Celebrar" on them. She serves with 6-7 couples in the Monterrey Mexico Temple and wants to attach them to gifts. I'm thrilled she'd ask me to do this. So this past week I painted new birthday tags, added Spanish words, printed them at Alphagraphics, punched them out and stamped the backs. While at it, she also wanted some Christmas tags. I got them printed and hand wrote on them "Feliz Navidad". I got them all mailed on Friday, June 9th! It's always fun to do a new art project!!

My Birthday paintings before print

PS: Ralph was called to be the President of the Monterrey Mexico Temple with Teresa as the matron, in 2016. I believe they began their 3 year church assignment in November 2016. Ralph served as a mission President and Teresa as the "mission mom" in Puebla, Mexico for 3 years before this new assignment. Ralph knew Spanish from his younger years as a missionary, but Teresa has had to work hard at learning the language. I'm proud of her efforts. She has truly tried to immerse herself not only in the work, but the language as well!! Although I took Spanish in High School, I can hardly repeat a sentence. So with Teresa's help, I got the correct words on the right tags 🌝 I hope she likes these!

Here's a sampling of my finished tags:

I stumbled upon this great video last night. It's very good and very informative!

Mormon Temples: A Conversation with a Church Leader