Chilles Orchard in July


Chilles Orchard is quite good for picking peaches when the place isn't picked clean. Yesterday I happened by only to find out that it was picked out. It was a fun place none the less, they have plenty of cider of both strawberries and peach in various size bottles. What a wonderful store and a natural resource for our little bit of the Piedmont of Virginia.
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What Has Worked;

Hut for a Blue Tractor and a Red Grass-Cutter

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     Many of these farm structures that I live around out here in Central Virginia near Lovingston are made from wood that has been recycled from earlier farm buildings.   I am almost certain that a lot if it may just go back to the early days of European settlers locating here in Schuyler.   One can just take a quick look and even without carbon-dating one can see that the wood is old and weathered by the elements.   It is very heavy older hardwood that these folks used in making their farm structures.   One can also see how the buildings were shaped for the needs of the farm at a time and then torn down but not discarded but reused again for another purpose..   The sizes of the buildings are small.   They may house one farm implement or two but they are not like those northern Atlantic barns that have lofts and large areas for animals, these buildings are built to suite a single purpose and generally aren'...
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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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Walton Home 'n Schuyler, Va.

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The proverbial home of Earl Hammner called to me to be painted. He was the author of the Americana book "The Waltons" and also the script writer for the TV show that followed. The TV show was widely seen during the 1980's. In this town of Schuyler where I now live E. Hammner is an icon and a museum has been established out of what was the elementary school in Schuyler. The museum is devoted to that TV show and its actors, memorabilia, plus a WWII museum added on to it. Folks who own the house now give tours to the Hammer home 9am to 5pm daily with only Sundays off. Schuyler is just off Rt 6 on Rt 800 (or Schuyler Rd) which is just east of Rt 29 and 30 miles south of Charlottesville (the home of The University of Virginia). I felt like I had been ignoring painting this home long enough and when I stopped into Ike's General Store to buy the local paper (the Daily Progress) some asked me if I ever painted it. Then it hit me: "I ought to do so, and ...
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Artwork in Crozet IGA Parking Lot Ya can't get much better than murals in one's grocery store parking lot. It seems like someone did something just for the idea of art for art sake. I love it! These murals show much of the surrounding areas of Crozet and who else could have shown it off but someone local, who has guts to do something this size in the first place. It turned out well and all people I've talked to love it as well. It's much bigger than I could show in this one photograph but for the people of this little Virginia town it means quite a bit.
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Barn on Rt 6 'n Louisa

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This painting is one in which I transposed my eyes vision onto the canvas. I saw this barn on the other side of the highway from "Kidds Store". I was at this spot to get a photo of Kidd's Store yet I saw this barn on the other side and saw that it too was an interesting composition that I could put on a canvas and perhaps, just perhaps it too could look good as a painting. So I snapped a photo of it and took off for home. I took it as a barn that I could interpret into something more than just another barn painting. I changed the coloring of the tin roof and the colors of its sides to become what it is. It is unique. It is not what one sees if you were standing their looking at it. But yet it is (at the same time recognizable as itself) It is more than what sits their, yet it is what sits in the field before you on Rt 6 just east of Scottsville.
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