The Purple Lily

This is a painting of one of the water lilies in my KOI ponds. Until I started trying to make a painting of the water lilies in my ponds, I had never really looked at them that close, except to look at them as part of the overall scene of the ponds. However, when I started looking at each lily flower up close, I realized that each lily flower has all the elements of a good design. Each has a center of interest, intense colors, supporting colors, different shapes, repeating shapes and interlocking shapes.

While doing this painting I also learned that there are people in this world that are not who they say they are and their intentions are actually to swindle me through a scam.

As you know, I have a web site that has the images of my drawings and paintings along with a lot of information on me and the stories that I write. The wonderful thing about the web site is that it kind of tells the world through the internet who I am and what I am doing. It is interesting to receive emails from people all over the world that have visited my web site. Of course, like all artist, I need to sell some of my paintings and prints to help pay for this expensive passion of mine.

When we first started the web site and offered my drawings for sale, I anticipated that we would be inundated with orders to purchase the originals and the prints. In fact, we were making plans on how to handle all the orders and the money that would be flowing in. Well as you can guess, that didn’t happen, so it is a big deal when someone does want to buy a print or an original.

About a week ago, I received an email from a lady that lives in London, in the United Kingdom. She had found my web site and was enthralled with my drawings and paintings of the lions, tigers and cougars. She had spent a lot of time looking at my web site and referred to a number of specific drawings and paintings. Her husband was being transferred to the US to be head of the Information Technology division of a large company in Georgia. She wanted to buy a number of paintings for her new home and so she then wanted a discount. We emailed each other a number of times working out the details such as there was no need for a shipping and handling cost since the shipping company that was moving them to the US would pick up the art work from me. Then I started getting emails from the shipping company as to sizes, weights, etc. Then she wanted to pay for all this with a Cashier’s Check. She explained that it would be made out for a larger sum of money, and I could just send her the balance after taking out the cost of my art work. At this point, I “smelled a rat” that something was wrong and broke off corresponding with her.

Within a few days, I get an email from a guy in California, who was very complimentary on my art work. He wanted to buy several paintings for his apartment. By now I am somewhat leery and with squinting eyes I study his email. Again the payment is to be by Cashier’s Check, his shipping company will pick up the art work, etc.

I mentioned these emails that I had received to my grandson, Edmund Duban. He lives with us now to go to college at The University of Houston and he is very knowledgeable about computers and the internet. Very quickly, he got the IP address from the emails from the lady in London, the shipping company, the guy in California and with his abilities he could pin-point the location of the computer that sent me those emails. And guess what, all three were from the same computer at the same location in Sunnyvale, California.

Yesterday afternoon, I received an email from a lady in Australia that has found my web site and is so complimentary of my art work and wants a big order. Here we go again.

Edmund did a search of the internet and found that these scammers that prowl the internet searching for vulnerable people to swindle have found the numerous web sites of artist. It is a perfect set up for the scammers: most artist now have web sits, they love to get compliments and they all need to sell their artwork to help pay for their expenses.

The name of game for the scammers is first to compliment the artist on their art work, correspond by email, indicate they want a big order, a shipping company will pick up the art work and they will pay by Cashier’s Check for a larger amount than the order with the balance to be returned to them. What happens is the scammer sends a Cashier’s Check to the artist. The artist cashes the Cashier’s Check and, being honest, returns the excess amount to the scammer. The shipping company never arrives to pick up the art work. In about thirty days, the bank notifies the artist that the Cashier’s Check was counterfeit and wants the artist to return all the money.

So this painting of a purple lily will always be important to me since it made me study and admire all of the beautiful parts of a flower and to also “get my head out of the clouds” when receiving compliments from strangers.