Sunny Mountain

Just north of Lovingston is this gas station where I sometimes visit with a friend for a Latino style breakfast. It is a unique spot, a one of a kind in my experience of gas stations. It is the typical country gas station with the exception that it has a Latino styled restaurant in the back and from the outside look of it nothing else looks quite like it due to its paint job. I really love how it captured my complete attention from the road when I first noticed it driving by on my way to Lovingston. Its bright as all in the sunshine on any typical clear day. When I first saw it I said to myself "I've just got ta paint this place, just for its paint job if nothing else." As so I did. Its raw wood flooring and hand built counters are filled with goods and there is always a friendly smile on the cash registrar attendant's face when you go to checkout. The restaurant in the back is raw too with its indoor picnic tables with plastic place-mats from which to eat, but its cooks are the best. The menu is short but authentic to its country where the food has originated from, in short its a great local treasure. I decided that it needed to be remembered with an oil from me. So I did it in a two week period. The work went in sections and slowly. The canvas is two inches short of five feet in length and 32 inches in height, so its a big canvas with lots of area to cover with my brushwork. As I mentioned it too about two weeks to complete and I'd have to say I work anywhere from two hours to eight hours a day working on it. I used my laptop's photos to work from and the only drawback was that my air conditioning broke down with a blown capacitor about half way into it. And it happened on those days when we broke a hundred degrees on the outside so it wasn't all that conducive for painting, but I forged ahead anyway. The A/C got fixed and the painting got done. I've done worse, and I've done better, but it is what it is, and I like having done something to remember this creatively beautiful building.

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What Has Worked;

Walking Along W. Main St.

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I found the scene along West Main is soon to change into an newer style cityscape of brick and glass with less ornamentation to its buildings. With this in mind I photographed some West Main Street buildings in the hopes of finding interesting scenes to paint. The signage is all a part of West Main and in that thought I painted this one with its graphic street crossing signage featured prominently in the picture plane. I highlighted the bricks in intense reds and developed the windows in a bizarre abstract display for each one of them. Each featuring one color being themed inside its frame as if each window display had its own abstract painting going on inside its area. Its all for the fun of it, I play with what is being viable to the view when I can. Nothing ventured nothing gained. It was nice how this one came together piece by piece with each painting session. Intense color came about as I developed its' scene on the sidewalk windows. I was going to bring in
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Wyant's Store in Whitehall,Va.

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  It is noted that Whitehall Virginia is a throwback to an earlier time, a time when people knew who you were whenever one was to shop in the store such as this....its something found in the rural areas of this state and not so much in the cities of Virginia. This is one of my paintings of such a place, where the guys inside it are all gathered talking about what's news in the area over some snack food of one kind or another. They were all very kind to me once I stopped in to see the inside of this store once I was done painting for the day. I enjoyed working on this one...it is the second of the same subject, the store was interesting to work on so I took a second look as it were and painted it again. It's wasn't so much that I didn't like the first painting of this country store it was more that I enjoyed working on it so I thought I would prolong the joyfullness by doing it a second time. I'm sure you have no idea what I am talking about..well just have a
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Firecycle in Kamahura: 1954 or So

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Its been a long time coming but I finished another in my Japanese style paintings this past weekend. It's of a fire cycle, they didn't have enough money to build a fire truck although they did have a few in the station instead they made a cycle which could fight fires. I thought it was kind of unique and looked very different that anything I'd seen before so I painted it. Using one of my Dad's black and white photos I did a rendering of it. I enjoyed working with the strong red colors even though the photo is in Black and White I could remember some of the colors involved in this vehicle so I went ahead and played with it. It took a good deal of work, but I continued on with it until it was completed. I just couldn't let go of it very long while I was painting it. I guess I did another marathon painting session last weekend. I know I felt it after I was done.
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The County of Nelson's Courthouse

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Life's interest often takes us to the law and where the law is practiced. Recently there was a trial where it drew statewide interest due to the unusual manner in which the prosecution held its case. They didn't have the right of habeas corpus to carry on a conviction with yet the trail went on, and in the end the man was convicted of capital murder. There seems to have been enough evidence to convince the jury of the man's guilt. It was only the second time in Virginia criminal law cases that this has happened and it happened here in Nelson County. The Courthouse where this trial took place stands alone on top of a hill (the highest point in the city of Lovingston, Va.) The courthouse has a newer extension put onto its northside but if one sees it from one spot where I painted this canvas you can't see it. But what you do see is the old structure in all its grandeur. Such was the place from which I chose to paint this rather unremarkable yet noticeable b
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The Holland Farm Chicken House in Arrington Va.

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    This piece of land has more to be explored from what I have been able to discern from the local neighbors.   I've only photographed what I can see from Arrington Road nearby where the Locken Music Festival is held in the summer.   There are three buildings I have been able to study so far with more that are out of sight.   I am interested due to the age of some of these abandoned farm buildings.   I was told that this one is a 'chicken house' for the Holland farm.   Its not in operation anymore but it must have held a good number of the foul in its heyday.   This is an oil.  I use a 30/30/30 medium with sunthickened linseed oil going by the name Stand oil.   Its small, only 14 inches by 26 inches in size with a popular wood lattice frame slapped on it.  
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