"Dad, Thinker and Tinkerer" - oil on canvas board, of my father Albert Pigon.  My dad passed away in 2000.  He was a very clever man, who could make, or fix, just about anything (except, apparently, the decrepit old clothes drier my parents had, as my wife and I found out to our chagrin during a visit where 3 hours didn't do quite do it for a pair of jeans) and was always tinkering with things in his basement workshop, when not ensconced in his easy chair reading either the newspaper or his favorite magazines like Popular Mechanics and National Geographic.  He was amazingly creative in his use of odd materials (as Thomas Edison said "To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk" ) and very good with his hands as well as vast array of tools.  He certainly had the pile of junk, too, much to my mother's disgust, and to the annoyance of my brother's and sister's who had to clean out the house after he died.  

I first painted this years ago but did a poor job - it's hard to paint a scene you can't see, or without any photos with the same lighting or composed per the painting.  I gave it to my sister and I think it languished in a closet until I got it back awhile ago.  Recently I took another crack at it and I am reasonably satisfied with the results.  The face is spot-on but it's the coloring and shading I am less happy with.  The room is OK - probably not unified in the consistency of the lighting but OK.  The contemplative look on my dad's face, lips pursed, was one of his quirks (along with biting the inside of the side of his mouth).  But until I added the band saw at the far left (an inspired stroke, I think), something was missing. 

Now I have my dad's ancient power tools, all 1948 Craftsman, and many of his hand tools, in my workshop.  Several of them I use frequently.  I think I will hang this painting, if not in the workshop (due to the dust), just outside it, as a fitting tribute to his crafty inventiveness, and Yankee know-how.