Caswell 9: River Houses (The Rest of the Story)

"Caswell Series, #9: River Houses (The Rest of the Story)"
Gouache on Paper 22" x 30" 1982

These small houses were used as dormitories for campers - they were on the bank of the Cape Fear River, with Bald Head Island across the water. There's a good story with this one - the original was this size, but while I had it on the easel working on it, my mom's cat came in with wet feet and managed to jump from the nearby window to my easel and left a BIG wet pawprint and streak on the yellow house side! After drop-kicking the cat out of the room, I surveyed the damage - no way to fix a large flat area of gouache with water streaks, so I was able to cut that half of the painting off and leave the blue house as "Caswell #5: Salvage Operation" - whew! Later I tried again and got this painting done as originally intended (with no help from that cat!).

Later I entered it in the 13th Annual Juried Show of the Greensboro Art League and it received a Purchase Award from Hanes Lineberry Services for their collection.

No. 5 did well also - Socks the cat did me a favor there!