PADRE ISLAND NATIONAL SEASHORE, Texas (AP) - When painter Tyler Hudock worked as a law enforcement park ranger, there wasn’t a day he didn’t see a ghost crab scrambling along the beaches at Padre Island National Seashore.
Four years after leaving South Texas, Hudock conjured images of ghost crabs, sea turtles, brown pelicans and a red drum for concepts to send to the seashore for its first installment of the Artist-In-Residence Program.
“The ghost crab is iconic of Padre Island National Seashore even if people don’t think of them automatically,” said Hudock, who worked in Padre Island, Virginia and the Smoky Mountains before resigning to raise his young son.
The Corpus Christi Caller-Times (https://bit.ly/1kqR714 ) reports Hudock’s painting of a ghost crab with sand, seaweed and the Gulf of Mexico in the background will be transformed into a larger canvas, which will be given to the park upon completion.
Using a computer program, which breaks down a painting to square units and assigning each row and column a color and a number, Hudock provided a way for the community to take part in the artistic process.
“There are 30 total colors and 6,000 squares,” he said. “It’s basically a giant color-by-numbers.”
By midafternoon Tuesday, about 150 people had stopped by the Malaquite Visitor’s Center to help paint the mural. Many participants were part of local home-school groups, said park ranger Patrick Gamman, chief of interpretation and education at the seashore.
Adele Lindsey brought her 9-year-old daughter, Nydalynn, to take part in the painting, which will be displayed at the park and loaned out to area and national museums.
“I love something like this which is educational. We do a lot of stuff like this,” Lindsey said about her daily activities with her home-schooled daughter. “A couple of home-schoolers shared it on Facebook.”
Art and national parks have been connected, starting in 1872 with Yellowstone National Park and artist Thomas Moran, Gamman said.
With free wireless Internet in the visitor’s center, Gamman encourages people to do “instant art” with their cellphones and social media, taking photos and sharing them online.
“We want to help people in Texas and the country to think about the Padre Island National Seashore and understand its beauty,” Gamman said. “That’s why we started the Artist-in-Residence Program. A national park is a place of inspiration.”
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Information from: Corpus Christi Caller-Times, https://www.caller.com
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