Caption/Fiction Contest: Ends August 17th

Write a caption (one to several sentences) or a short story (under 1000 words) about this painting and and the best entry will win the watercolor.

July 4th 20x20 oil on panel framed

watercolor on Rives BFK approximately  11"x8.5"

 Purchase the oil painting above

This is based on the The Thematic Apperception Test, or TAT, is a projective measure intended to evaluate a person's patterns of thought, attitudes, observational capacity, and emotional responses to ambiguous test materials. In the case of the TAT, the ambiguous materials consist of a set of cards that portray human figures in a variety of settings and situations. The subject is asked to tell the examiner a story about each card that includes the following elements: the event shown in the picture; what has led up to it; what the characters in the picture are feeling and thinking; and the outcome of the event. 

So watch out what you write or maybe someone will think you're nuts!

Enter in the comments section.

You may want to e-mail me with your contact info so I can send you your prize.  
kenney.mencher@gmail.com
Let me know if you want a catalog!

More contests on this blog and my website:
http://www.kenney-mencher.com/
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This came in by e-mail:

Watch the Skies

Helen Chapman 

      ‘It was right up there. See, just above the crest of the hills? That was where they were.’

      ‘Really Charles. I wish you wouldn’t fill her head with such nonsense.’ Rolanda Dahl couldn’t believe it. Here it was, ten years later, and her husband’s cousin Charles was still carrying on about the time he and his father saw those ‘flying donuts’.  You’d think, in 1962, he’d be over such nonsense. But no, nothing would do but for him to drag them all the way out to Maury Island so he could point out where they saw the 'ships'.
      ‘Your cousin thinks it’s nonsense, Gloria. I only know what I saw.’  Charles sneered when he said ‘nonsense’. There were times he didn’t know why his cousin had married this woman. ‘There were six of them, right up there. One of them broke off formation. It looked like it was having  mechanical problems. Suddenly,  rocks started raining down on our boat. One of them killed my dog. He was a good old dog.’
      Gloria Shepherd didn’t know what to think. She had always liked Charles. Her cousin  was always talking about how foolish he was, and how he was taken with flights of fancy. Gloria thought he sounded like he knew what he was talking about.
      ‘You don’t believe me, Rolanda?’  He sounded angry. ‘Then what’s this?’  He pulled something from his trouser pocket and held it on his palm.
      Rolanda looked down in disdain and sniffed. ‘It’s a rock.’
      Charles handed it to Gloria.
      Gloria picked it off his palm and examined it closely. ‘It looks like a piece of shale, and  it’s heavy.’
      Charles walked to the water’s edge and filled a cup. ‘Drop it in.’
      Dutifully, Gloria dropped the rock into the paper cup.
      ‘It’s floating!’
      Charles took it from cup and shook it dry.  He put it back in his pocket, and took out something small and white. ‘What do you make of this?’
      Gloria studied it. She held his hand and turned it this way and that, so she could look at it from all sides.
      ‘It looks like a folded up piece of paper.’ Rolanda was becoming more irritated by the minute.
      ‘Hold out your hand, Gloria.’ Charles laid the folded ‘paper’ on the girl’s outstretched palm.
      No sooner had he released it than it began to vibrate. He grabbed Gloria’s hand when she recoiled. ‘Watch’.
      As they watched, the ‘paper’ began to unfold of its own volition, in a quick, orderly progression of turns and flips. In seconds, there was a perfect uncreased six inch square that  levitated above the teenager’s hand.
      ‘Hmph. Parlor tricks.’ Rolanda crossed her arms and turned her back on the pair.
Charles ignored her this time. ‘Dad and I picked these out of the water that day. We had a whole bucket full of them. The government took most of them. I managed to hide these.’
      ‘Oh, here we go again. Now he’s going to tell her all about the man in the big black Buick.’  Rolanda spoke to no one in particular. She was angry, and didn’t care who knew it.
      ‘What do you mean the government took them, Charles? Why would they want to take things like this?’
      Charles shook his head. ‘I don’t know. First some man threatened my father, said if he told anyone about what happened, bad things would happen. Then a bunch of soldiers showed up at our house and tore the place apart. ’
      Rolanda had just about enough. ‘Charles, you know good and well that your father told everyone he had made the whole thing up.’
      ‘Of course he did. After that man in the Buick threatened us.’
      The sun was beginning to set. ‘Charles, we need to get back. The mosquitos are starting.’  Rolanda began swatting the air as the bloodsuckers swarmed around her.
      ‘Charles, what’s that?’  Gloria pointed to a dot traveling out of the western horizon towards them.
      The pair stood and watched as the dot grew. As it neared, they could make out that it was disk-shaped. It seemed to hover over a group of dunes down the shoreline.
      ‘Ro, look.’  Charles Dahl was in awe.  This was the same sort of craft he and his father had seen ten years ago.
      She glanced in the general direction of the disk. ‘So?’
      ‘Charles? Is it...waiting?’  The thing seemed to be ‘looking’ at them as it hovered six feet off the ground.
      ‘You want to go see?’
      They heard tires on the gravel road behind them.  It seemed awfully late for someone to be going to the beach.
      He looked at the ship again, then looked past Rolanda to the road, just as a black Buick Roadmaster crested the hill and stopped. The front passenger window rolled down and a man inside stared down at them.
      ‘Come on, Gloria. Let’s go see.’  He took the girl’s hand and the two of them walked quickly down the beach, away from the black Roadmaster and away from Rolanda.
      Rolanda watched as they walked away.  She saw the craft hover, rise up into the sky, and hover again. She watched as Charles and her cousin stood directly under the craft, looking up, as a beam of pure white light enveloped the pair. Then they were gone: Charles, Gloria and the odd craft.
      Rolanda  walked towards the Buick. The passenger got out. He was tall, extremely thin, wearing a black suit, crisp white shirt and black tie. He wore a hat two sizes too small for his head, and perched at a peculiar angle, as if he was unfamiliar with that accessory.
      ‘Well, what  now?’  Rolanda handed her hat to the man, and began stripping off her kid gloves.
      The man reached over and opened the back door.  ‘The boss wants to talk to you.'
      This was unexpected. Rolanda never expected the boss to come all the way out here. She slid into the back seat.
      She turned to the passenger sitting against the opposite  door and held out her right hand in greeting. ‘Good evening, Mr. Nixon. It’s a pleasure to see you again.’