All the items contained in this still life colored pencil painting are items received from my grandparents after they passed away. The mandolin seen on the right is a "pill bug" style instrument owned by my maternal grandfather. I never saw him play it. I believe that he just enjoyed collecting instruments. The small box on the left is an example of an old puzzle type box. It came from my paternal grandmother. Pieces of it needed to be moved around to release the lid so that it could swing open. The larger box on the left also came from my paternal grandmother. A note was in the box identifying this as a "peddler's box" that was owned by an uncle of my paternal great grandmother. This uncle was a peddler and the box is believed to be between 150 and 200 years old. The note you see in the box is not authentic. I wrote this in the style that I imagined might have been written long ago by a man on the road missing his wife. I set these items up as a still life and played with the lighting. The photograph of this scene is the basis of the colored pencil painting entitled "Notes of a Peddler". It is done on Grafix drafting film using Farber-Castell Polychromos pencils. The size of the artwork is 11 x 14 inches.
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