Charlottesville : The Cityscape of Change

The area here is surround with some wonderfully lush greenery. In my last painting of a striking red brick Church sitting among fields of green foliage got me to put out my easel and paints. I got to work on a very beautiful morning and spent four and a half hours painting it. The work certainly paid off for me. I did hit the sky up with the movement of pigment giving it a feel of moving air but most of the painting was done on the spot where I began it. The location is just off of "Irish Highway" or what is now Rt 6 about two miles east of Rt 29. It's my third painting from this spot. I've worked looking east and west, the scenes were very full of details which I enjoy painting. I certainly became immersed in the making of all my paintings that I did on this location. I am hoping to do more pastoral paintings because I am very pleased with these landscapes but I just don't know if I will have the energy or if the temperatures will hold themselve…

Yesterday I had the opportunity to take a good look at the O-Hill trail. It has been used quite a lot over the years. I heard from a reliable source that it started as an equestrian trail and not as a biking trail. I am pleased that bikes were allowed on it without being outlawed from it as can happen from what I've read in magazines from the west.
It was an outstanding day for riding yesterday, I enjoyed getting up early on Sunday and taking off on a pristine morning with clear light shinning and helping me to see. I took my camera with me. The rider on the trail is just someone I ran into on the rim trail who didn't mind having his picture taken.
What's good is to be healthy enough to make it up the hill to these wonderful trails. Not all people of my age are so lucky. I count my blessings as I look at these photos of my trail riding.
So far, I've ridden on Walnut Creek trails, The GW Parkway trail, the Hanncock Maryland trail (24 miles of it) …

This hill and woods are part of the University of Virginia's Observatory Hill. It houses the planitary observatory and it also is know for it's hiking, and biking trails. I have often ridden on them and enjoy seeing it from this point of view. The biking/hiking trails run from the water tower arond to that building way to the left of the hill and of course they run up to the Observatory itself. Once one is on the trails a person can run all over this hill on a network of trails that run around/ up and down the small mountain. As you can see it is right nearby the stadium where U.Va. football has it's homefield. It was a joy to fly over it last year and snap this photo of it.

Nelson County has a wonderful road that runs through it that goes by the name of "Irish Rd". It's otherwise known as Rt 6 but to those in the know it's "Irish Road'. The scenic highway runs though some of the most wonderful old farming land in the low mountains of the Piedmont for the Blue Ridge mtns. It is a winding, and somewhat unexpectedly ruff and also somewhat hard to drive road. It's only two lanes all the way from it's beginnings in northwestern Nelson County to it's endpoint in Richmond....I might be wrong but I think it's one of the most traveled highway in this part of Central Virginia. That brings me to me sitting in a field surrounded by grassland and wildflowers with an ideal view of the rolling lanes of Rt 6 sitting just over the rise...and so this painting came about on a hot summers day. In fact I believe it was on the very first day of summer for the year it was painted. I did it in two sittings both lasti…

I was outside painting in the middle of a field at noon today and I had to stop after a few breaks in an airconditioned car to keep off the fainting. I would have brought a camera and had a photo of the really beautiful spot but it was too hot even for a sensitive instrument such as a phone or a electronic camera. But I did get a good start to this new painting and I hope to head out tomorrow morning to finish it up. This summer has been just great for all the new visas to paint here in Nelson County, Virginia. It mountainous and very green. The people here are very helpful and curious as to what I am doing and painting. I welcome them and answer all their questions and volunteer some information too. Thankfully no one has run me off their property. The folks have welcomed my presence and been quick to give me permission to set up my easel and paint on their land. It's been just exceptional this summer. I don't feel like painting buildings anymore, the fol…

The second version of Waltons Mountain was a little less pushed and came out with a bit more fineness to it. It was painted in daylight and had an artist who had taken the time on the day before to see just what the scene was made up of. (I painted the same scene the day before) and this second time I knew I wanted more than green to be used on my brush. So I got to it and with a couple of hours I had a finished painting...the one seen here

The mountains nearby are also very interesting subject matter for my palette and brush. I painted one with a storm coming down the way towards me. The mist was very pleasing but it kept getting just a little more intense as time when by. Finally I felt enough that I had to pack up and make a run for it. I did get this rather unusual painting up of a dark sky with some very tree filled mountains.

The views around here are spectacular and meant for my brush and palette and so here is one version of a landscape scenery near here down at the James River area. It's just off a road that parallels the James north of Scottsville in a little place called Howardsville, where there is a barge crossing of the river. One of the few left in the country but it's their....anyway I saw this beautiful composition and had to paint it and so I did....more than once too. This is the larger version, it's maybe a foot and a half by two and a half feet wide in size. I like it and had a good time painting it.

Painting on a Sunday is always going to be kind of a spiritual experience and painting nearby a Church service is no doubt going to bring into being the Church building as subject matter for my canvas. That's how I got going with this particular painting. I was out in the middle of a field with nothing much more and trees and sky to paint but there was this Church that stood far away but very visible, it was red against the green of foliage. And so this painting came about quickly but most assuredly the composition made itself.