George Boutwell’s

CHRISTMAS ECLIPSE


Painting completed in: 1992

In the Summer of 1992 at the Fiesta Del Concho in San Angelo, Texas, I was told about a ranch that had a restored wooden Eclipse Windmill. Since Windmills were to be the theme for my 1993 Calendar, I thought an Eclipse would be great to include since the Eclipse and similar wooden Windmills were the ones that won the Old West! I found this Eclipse Windmill between Eola and Millersview and shot an entire roll of film to make sure I got it right. I took that roll of film and several others to the Drug Store to be sent off to be developed and when they came back from the lab, there was no Eclipse Windmill and one of the rolls of film was totally blank and had an apology note from the lab. It was almost publishing time and I had several other good painting ideas so I went to press without including the Eclipse in my calendar. After my Daughter Kim's wedding we took several more rolls of film to the Drugstore to be developed and when I picked them up, there in the batch were the Eclipse Windmill photographs and I guess I'll never know what was on that blank roll of film. I was planning to use the Eclipse Windmill for the December Calendar Picture because it's colors are Red and Green but since the Photo Lab changed my plans, I decided to use it as my annual Gift Print that I send out each year!