Portrait of an Artist Richard Garretson part 2

Before

After

German Sternwheeler
"A couple weeks before Christmas I picked up a damaged Lemax sternwheeler at the swap meet.  Except for the stern wheel, bow gangway and trim items on the boat which are plastic, the boat itself is of a ceramic composition and was made to be part of a Christmas display.  Someone had probably dropped it because part of the stern wheel was broken (one of its paddles and a supporting brace) and the two smoke stacks were missing (broken away).  Despite the problems, it looked like it had potential for being turned into a tired colonial riverboat.  Another important factor was that it had minimal Christmas decoration and that could be hidden rather easily.  Lastly it was only $10."

Welcome to part 2 of my portrait of Richard Garretson. Who is Richard Garretson? Richard is a retired teacher from Sunny California, he lives right by Disneyland.
"Most of the people I worked with thought I would go nuts when I retired because I had been so passionate about my work. The thing that has made retirement so wonderful for me is this crazy hobby. You'd think that after more than 30 years I'd be getting bored, but the truth is I'm having more fun with it today than ever before. Probably an indication of a simple mind, but if that's the case, I thank god for being simple minded."

"I understand that your daughter takes the photographs for your galleries what does your wife think about them? "My wife has always been okay with my hobby it made me happy and kept me of the streets. But when I began putting the galleries together she began to see what had been so interesting for me all those years. It wasn't until she saw the pictures, saw that what I was doing wasn't random I had a plan, that she could enjoy it. She has really come to enjoy my crazy stuff which makes it even more fun for me."

Woman in a Shoe

 "I go to my local swap meet every weekend looking for rare items, which is to say junk, that I can use with my miniatures collections. Every once in awhile I find a toy that has no practical purpose for any of my hobby projects, but it is perfect scale for 28mm or 15mm and so nicely crafted that I can't resist buying it just for the joy of repairing & repainting it. That was the case with the "shoe". It cost me $2 and I got more than my money's worth from the pleasure of working on it. I did some small modifications using Milliput to create climbing shrubs to hide a missing window, seams & hinges then repainted it. The figures are by Wyrd and are part of my 28mm Victorian collection."

Snake Oil

"I was really taken by this Lemax Halloween decoration snake oil wagon. It is resign reasonably priced and despite the large wheels it goes well with 28mm as can be seen by the size of the door. The only real modification I made to it other than a new paint job was to add a few pieces of plastic to each step to reduce the height of each step level. I really liked the wagon's sign so I kept it as it was. The figure is from Horrorclix I rebased and repainted him. The two trees are resin but I have no idea who manufactured them. I picked them up at the swap meet for $2 each.

Richard's galleries can be found here. Next Sunday I'll preview Richard's last gallery Pulp Egypt!