When longtime Circuit Court Judge Charles D. Haston put down the gavel and retired in 2002, he quickly picked up a somewhat more creative instrument, a paintbrush, and was soon proving his artistic skills matched his acumen on the bench.Haston’s colorful and wonderfully detailed paintings gained him accolades in shows locally, with a front-page article in the Southern Standard leading to a segment on “Tennessee Crossroads,” the popular Emmy Award-winning series airing on Nashville Public Television.While his paintings are eminently marketable, Haston says selling his work for personal profit is not his goal. It’s mostly his family, friends and local charities that benefit from his talent.But Haston recently ventured pretty far afield, all the way to the upper echelon of the U.S. Navy, when he presented one of his paintings to retired Adm. Frank B. Kelso II, a Fayetteville native who served as the Navy’s 24th Chief of Naval Operations, the top post in the Navy.“He was Chief of Naval Operations, the No. 1 sailor in the country, for three or four years,” Haston said.