Don't Fall into "The Trap"

"The Tourist Trap"

10 x 20

Oil on Canvas

I painted this delightful scene based on a day I spent enjoying one of Hilton Head Island's beautiful beaches. Sitting further back on the beach, I observed this lovely couple arrive - most likely freshly sprung out of a long car ride having traveled from somewhere in the Midwest (the local sport on the Island in the summertime is to count the number of license plates seen bearing "OHIO" in any one given day. It's usually A LOT :). They eagerly set up their beach chairs and began pulling out some delectable goodies from their blue cooler. Sitting ducks they were. The "locals," Great Black-backed Gulls (Larus marinus), were one step ahead of these innocents. Use your imagination to envision what happened next. It is safe to say that the scene resembled an iconic portion of an Alfred Hitchcock film. Happy to report no one was injured and the gulls eventually went off to find other unsuspecting people from Ohio. It was a nice day.