Today, is special for me, I get to introduce my brother, Brandon Carter our new acrylic artist at the House. Brandon became an artist as soon as he could hold a pencil. As a young child, he filled sketchbooks with drawings of parachutes, planes soaring in the clouds, scuba divers, sailboats, and all sorts of animals. All his boyhood dreams came out in pictures.

As Brandon entered adulthood, my mother prayed over him, while he fulfilled all those dreams scribbled in those pages.  He lived aboard a sailboat, flew and parachuted out of planes, jumped off bridges, and scuba dived with sharks.

The one adventure our Momma put us all on our knees for, was when he and a friend set out on a Friday afternoon in his sailboat in search of Tangier Island, because he wanted crabs for dinner. He neglected checking the weather report.

A northeastern blew in.

Momma’s worry lines deepened with every flash of lightening and wind gust.

On the Chesapeake Bay, Brandon and his friend tied themselves to the boat while trying to remain on course. For an entire night, his boat climbed tall swells before plunging over their peaks. By the time they reached Tangier, seasickness killed their appetite for crabs.

All they could do was walk along the beach before swimming back to the boat and pointing the bow home.  Meanwhile on Sunday morning, still unaware his whereabouts, Momma knelt by the altar pleading for his life.

He showed up for dinner late that night as if nothing happened.

God created Brandon for adventure and art. As a child, I meandered his art shows sizing up the competition, and often he won “Best in Show” beating those three-times his age. His wins landed him in the newspaper with full write-ups about this “boy wonder” who beat his own teacher.

These days, painting is a hobby he picks up occasionally as he manages the family business Brandon House Furniture company in Suffolk, Virginia, but I’m happy he’s agreed to pick up those brushes for me…and you.

I’ve requested that he give us something simple. Dial it down to our level, so we can follow along and try it ourselves. You will find he’s set up an easel in his furniture store, and will be dividing one landscape into bite-size chunks. I hope you’ll try it out for yourselves. Without further delay, welcome Brandon Carter to The Studio.

Note: You can find this tutorial on our new You Tube Channel. Please like and subscribe.