“Oh, my goodness,” was what came out as he took the painting out of the box and handed it to me. There on one knee holding it out in front of me, my eyes scanned across the painting, coming to rest on the reflection painted on the right wing.
“You see the reflection?” I asked my wife who was recording on my cellphone. “You gotta come over here.”
John had just unboxed the most beautiful painting of our plane on a left crosswind departure from Pagosa Springs, CO. I’m frequently amazed at the events that lead to a point in time, and this is one of those that’s worth recounting.
I met John the first time at the Paso Robles fly-in back in 2018. We had a common connection as owners of M20D’s that had been converted to retract and constant speed prop. I can’t remember if we talked about it, but I don’t think I knew at the time that he was an artist.
The following year in 2019, Kathy and I went to the Mooney Summit in Panama City, Florida. Looking through the silent auction items, I noticed one for a commissioned painting from John. I tried bidding on it but it quickly went past what was in my budget at the time. We weren’t able to go to subsequent Mooney Summits, but I would check the online silent auction for John’s painting without success.
Over the years after seeing some pictures of John’s work, I told him that one day I would like to have a painting of my Mooney. Life and time got away from me in 2025. I lost track of time and never checked the silent auction. In October of 2025 I received a message from John on MooneySpace that there had been no bids on his painting and asking if I was interested in making a donation to the Mooney Summit and Bill Gilliland Foundation to have him do a painting.
I was surprised. I couldn’t believe nobody had bid on his auction item. His work that I had seen is excellent. I inquired about what the winning bid has historically been. He didn’t know, but he told me how much the winning bid was the previous year, so I added a little and reached out to Mike Elliott with the Mooney Summit to see if that was acceptable. (I know us Mooney owners are notoriously cheap, but when John was going to donate a huge amount of time and effort and the money is going to support the families of downed Mooney pilots, it’s not a time to go cheap.) Everyone was in agreement, the money was sent, and the journey began.
Over the next three months John and I traded emails and phone calls, him getting an idea of what I had in mind, and me trying to get him pictures from the right angle of my plane and the background I wanted. There was no question where I wanted it set. It had to be the airport at Pagosa Springs, CO with the San Juan Mountains in the background. We have a home there and fly in frequently, and while I live in California with its beautiful beaches, I have always felt that the mountains are God’s Country.
I told him I didn’t really have many pictures of my plane in flight, and was surprised when he said he didn’t need one. He said to stand on a ladder and take some pictures from about a 30-45° angle from the front. In my mind I couldn’t figure out how he was going to take a picture like that and make the plane look like it was flying, but I’m not an artist.
Eventually after some trial and error I got him the pictures he said he needed, and then the waiting began. Another three months went by with him giving me updates on the progress, no pictures, just that progress was moving forward. I didn’t want to see any pictures; I didn’t want it to take away from the final reveal. At one point he told me, “I’ve got the composition laid out and this is going to be without a doubt the most complex and challenging painting I’ve ever done. If I pull it off, I’m certain we will both be very pleased with the results.” If that doesn’t pique your interest, I don’t know what will.
Another couple of months went by and he told me it was just about finished and “extremely happy with the results.” John is based out of Lampson Field north of the Bay Area and we had agreed to fly and meet up for the delivery. I wouldn’t want it any other way. The only problem was looking at my weekends, it wasn’t going to be until Memorial Day, two months away, before we could line up schedules. Unfortunately, although John said his schedule was wide open it needed to be a weekend because I still have to work during the week to support my flying habits. “No problem,” he said, “just means I have more time to enjoy it.”
Think of a kid waiting for a Christmas present, but it’s only October. That was how it felt.
Memorial Day finally arrived and we flew from Fullerton (KFUL) to Visalia (KVIS) to meet some friends along the way. We had met Tim and Kathy through my Instagram account. He was looking to get back into flying after a hiatus and I had taken him for a flight in our Mooney because he was considering buying a Mooney. He ended up with an Archer, but I didn’t hold that against him.
The plan was to do some formation flying on the way to meet John at Livermore (KLVK). We landed in Visalia and I had a text from John to give him a call. It looked like the fog wasn’t going to lift as forecast from Livermore and would we be okay flying a little further to the Nut Tree Airport (KVCB) in Vacaville. I looked at the current weather at KVCB. There were some decent gusting winds that were mostly down the runway. Tim had been flying a lot since getting his plane a few months before but was still getting back into it. I told him the winds and asked if he was okay flying to Nut Tree.
“Sure,” he said.
We sat down in the FBO and planned out the flight and talked about the formation flying. He would fly lead and I would be wingman. Once we got near Travis AFB I would check in with Travis Approach to see if the alert areas were active. If they weren’t we would swing around the west side of Travis’s airspace, if they were I would coordinate with approach. I filed a flight plan, pulled a briefing, and we went out to our planes.
We had fun on the way there, even if I did need to slow down for the Archer! I formed up on his wing and we took some pictures. He broke away and then we formed up again and I broke away which made for some good video. After a while my neck was sore from flying and looking at him the whole time so we loosened up the rest of the way. The alert areas weren’t active and we began a descent.
I couldn’t get the weather on the radio yet, but ADS-B was showing clear skies over KVCB. My concern was that there was a thin overcast layer ahead and I wasn’t sure if it ended before the airport, or if the automated weather was just reporting a spot of clear skies above, so we went in under the layer with Tim in trail a couple miles behind me.
The reported winds were 190 at 13 gusting 27. It was going to be sporty, but they were almost right down the runway with us landing on 20. We landed and pulled up to a transient spot next to John’s plane. The winds grabbed the door of Tim’s Archer and popped a rivet separating the piece that holds the door open. Fortunately, he was able to slide it back together and repair it later.
We headed inside out of the wind for the reveal. I stood there in anticipation making sure my wife was recording everything.
“So I’m very happy with how it turned out. It presented some really interesting, new and interesting challenges” he said as he began opening the box.
Looking out the window at my plane he continued. “And I think my color match is pretty good. Blues are tricky.”
And then, he lifted it out of the box and turned it toward me, which brings us full circle to my “Oh my goodness” comment. His color match wasn’t “pretty good,” it was perfect.
The mountains, airport, buildings, everything was perfect. He had captured the light dusting of snow that covered the fields around the airport in the picture I had sent. Some years it is a solid blanket, but this was from a light snowfall year, and it looked just like I remembered. John captured every detail. I have a West Coast Mooney Club sticker and a sticker with my website on the right rear window, and he had painted those in. There were the reflection of the tail number and part of my logo on the right wing.
“I made some exceptions and decided not to include any of the ground traffic. And I decided I wanted to ice the pond instead of having blue there because I didn’t want it to compete with your paint.”
Little details that I never would have thought of, but then I’m not an expert painter.
“Everything that you see that is white, whether the snow, clouds, the plane, that is all paper. That’s not pigment, that’s just white paper showing through.”
John went on to explain that with watercolors you work from light to dark, because once you put color onto the paper you can’t remove it. I can’t even comprehend how you plan to not paint certain parts of the paper to keep them white instead of just adding white paint. He estimated that he spent more than 50 of actual brush to paper, not including all the planning and sketching out of the painting.
After some more time admiring and marveling at the quality of the painting, we put it in my plane and walked over to a restaurant to get lunch before saying our goodbyes and taking off for our various home bases. We landed back at Fullerton after 5.43 hours of flight time and 806 miles with a one-of-a-kind treasure and memories for a lifetime. All of it started because I happened to have the same model Mooney as a very talented artist, who I am grateful to be able to say is also a good friend.
If you love John’s work (there’s so much more of it) and are interested send him an email at n8614g@icloud.com.
As a bonus, here are the past Mooney Summit Silent Auction paintings John did, I may be a little partial, but I think mine is the best. Although the kids holding hands looking at a Mooney is tough to beat.😊
