Oh Boy! What fun this project was! I had a blast ripping Martin Devine's work. He is one of my favorite artists here at EBSQ and this is a real honor and a treat. I love the space and vastness in Martin's works and despite their small size, they make a big statement. Most of all, they make me wish I could be in those lush hills surrounded by glorious color and fresh air.

My work is quite opposite of Martin's and always so full of bits and pieces of this and that - much like my thoughts. Always cluttered and in somewhat of a frenzy. I think that is why I so appreciate Martin's minimalist ways. Martin told me that he nearly painted an all white canvas as his rip on my work.

I picked several of Martin's "Scottish Hills" pieces for this project. I initially wanted to stick with one choice and was planning on using nothing but Martin's painted houses collaged on the landscape, keeping it entirely Scottish, just a more cluttered version. I would have thrown in a few sheep grazing and maybe some Highland cows, as those have come up in discussions on the forum. But then it hit me one night. My mind took off and I ended up Americanizing the Scottish landscape, dotting it with Americanisms from left to right, top to bottom. It can be seen as a total spoof on Martin's work. Where in the Scottish hills do you see the Golden Arches?

I started out painting the background in a somewhat Martin-like tradition with waterbased paints, outlined in black. I drew in the city from Martin's "American Cityscape" and I added the McDonalds' Arches as a joke. Then I went to town. And this town comes complete with a shop called Martin.com - it's right next door to the One Hour Martinizing dry cleaners. I used Martin's photo from his Interview on EBSQ and digitally altered the color, attached it to another artist's body, added an image of one of my paintings on the t-shirt and threw in a pair of "Wellies" for fun. The Wellies - well I won a lovely set of Martin's cards just for knowing what Wellies are and if you don't know, they're rubber boots. I added a tall Chevrolet sign and altered the name to read DEVINE. I also altered the car's side mirror by using Martin's original work as the reflection and including the words you always see in those side mirrors - OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR.

I've used Arches watercolor paper, gouache, acrylics, & photo images - for any digital manipulation I used Photoshop.