I stretched a 36×40 canvas and stared at its blank white surface for over a year. I had the vision of an abstracted antique airplane for my son’s room. There was just one problem however, I didn’t know anything about airplanes. I took out some reference books from my local library and dug up some of my husbands’ old airplane books but that wasn’t enough. Researching, learning and building a story is what’s great about the process of art. While doing my research, I was really drawn to the vintage looking green, navy, and copper colors of the old propeller planes. It wasn’t until a visit to a local antique store that I really started to see my vision come to life. When I found some very old LIFE® magazines along with some other older books, I began to read through the stories and text about pilots, aircrafts, war and Americana.