This is the wall cloud that had the tornado in it which went right over my place yesterday afternoon. The funnel never touched down but it was a thick one. I went out with the camera after we got a little penny-sized hail to shoot a pic of the hailstones and looked up to see the hook cloud pass overhead. It made the hair on my head go vertical. You could hear it!

...........

Speaking of hair, I was given the job by the Art Guild (for which I am no longer being a fall guy for the club's problems) to paint on a cowboy hat. An artist from each of Ohio's counties is doing one for the Farm Bureau of his or her county. The hats must show something about each county's agriculture.

Right. I am really big on agriculture.

So it is a competition with prizes (which I don't really care about winning. I prefer cash.) and the items will be judged at the Ohio State Fair. That will be sometime later down in Columbus, Ohio's biggest city.

The club laid this on me and I forgot my 2008 mantra. That mantra is "No, thanks."

This hat is a good one, made like all really decent western hats should be made - of highly compressed and shaped material. It looked great in white with the little black band (which I have removed during the painting.)

But this hat is a total B*tch to paint! It is a relatively tiny area, impossible to get into with brushes, and you can't stick it on an easel. One of those wig stands would be great, except this is not a round object. It is a cowboy hat. Try one on.

I have been working off and on with this hat since a week yesterday, and spent most of the weekend pulling out my hair doing detail and watching it dry. Most of the riser - the vertical portion of the hat - is done. I have to stick the "OUR OHIO" Farm Bureau logo on the front, and I have printed that part on a transparent self-adhesive material. It also reads "SENECA COUNTY"... and I have done the base color for the top of the brim. You can see some of those two colors.

The brim is the final part. It will be wheat and corn plants as you look at the hat front-to-back. I'll take more pics and post them when it is finished.

RIGHT SIDE:


REAR SIDE:


LEFT SIDE:


Excruciating, and it has really kept me from painting, writing and otherwise having a life here.