The Ditching of Happy Daze

My good friend's father, John Keelan, was a B-17 Aircraft Commander in WWII and was lucky to have survived.  On his 9th mission, (7/25/43) after bombing the sub pens at Kiel, Germany, he was bounced by enemy fighters.  Out of control and with a wing on fire, he managed to save his plane and crew and ditched "Happy Daze" about 30 miles off the coast of Germany.  He kept the crew alive for two days until they got a free ride back to England courtesy of Danish fishermen.  I tried to portray his final moments before ditching, late in the afternoon, with the number three engine feathered and smoke pouring off the wing. I researched the markings for the 410th Squadron of the 94th Bomb Group and think they are correct.

Carel Fabritius

One of the greatest painters you never heard of is Carel Fabritius,who was a Dutch Baroque painter (in this case, Baroque really refers to the time period, because the Dutch didn't share much in theme with their brothers in Italy and France.)

Carel Fabritius's The Goldfinch is a small (think 8x10) oil painting, on board. It shows a Goldfinch, tethered to a feeding box against a flat, discolored wall.  The effect is a trompe l'oeil trick designed to show you a three dimensional image of the life size bird suspended in air.

Fabritius (1622-54) lived a short life, dying in the great Delft gunpowder magazine explosion of 1654.  He was the only one of Rembrandt's students to develop his own artistic style and was undoubtedly a great influence on my personal hero, Jan VerMeer.

My sad copy is the one on the bottom and I could never quite get the depth illusion Fabritius put into the original. (my colors are actually closer to the original than this image.)