Look'n North Up Scottsville Main Street in Year Fifteen

The best part of today's digital age for this painter is being able to work indoors with images. I now set up indoors more often. However last summer I was hauling everything outdoors in order to paint. When I painted outdoors it was nice to see people and strike up a conversation with the public while I worked in my oils onsite. But the help of being nearby my creature comforts of my home won me over this year. Now I am working from photos I have taken outside and then put up on my laptop as a screensaver which shortcuts the need for heading outdoors. Even as a smaller image I still think I am 'getting it right', but I have yet to hear from others as to whether or not they think I am doing as well or better in my 'plein air' paintings of resent times. I certainly am not a fan of working out in the heat as I have in the past but working from the seclusion of my studio does have its appeal. Temperature control, cool indoor running water (and such), being out of the direct sunlight, and many other amenities I need not list. And so this painting of Scottsville is yet another in the ones I've done this summer. This painting is taken from the main street of Scottsville about mid-way and I'm looking northward towards the James River Brewery which is the larger brown and brick building the last in the row of buildings I featured in this painting. This painting as most now a days is an oil painting with a medium of 30/30/30. This medium was something I thought I had developed myself when I first began using it back in the 70's, but "nooooo" no so. As it turns out it is widely used by oil painters around the world. It works well, and so far the varnish used in one third of it is highly regarded for its qualities of clarity, its shine and solidity plus it's thought to be a varnish that will stand up to the test of time without the atypical cracking one sees in many of the older oils. But the jury is still out about that because not that much time has past since its' development. But here is hoping, because it is so widely used I am hoping the general consensus is right on this due to the survival of my work hanging in the lurch with this issue. So this is a small painting yet these smaller painting seem to take me just about similar time as my larger works. Funny about that! They are more popular as far as sales of them. I believe people just don't have the wall space for larger works, and when people do have the space it has ended up being a wall that is just a temporary home having me move them back home after a short stint being seen by the public. Perhaps an occasional sale of a larger work happens but this is most usually the case with paintings today. And I don't think its the prices but I believe its simply wall space in many people live just isn't that spacious anymore. I have to say, I still paint large work, and I still find them more favorable sizes to work on. Large canvases give we artist the space we enjoy to develop brushwork and experiment with our desires in paint, color, form, drawing and dreams themselves. It's all good though, big, small, and everything in between.

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What Has Worked;

Wyant's Store in Whitehall,Va.

Poolside

Kidd's Store, Va. : an oil

Firecycle in Kamahura: 1954 or So