A Joy


This is an oil titled: "A Power Greater Than Ourselves" and it's a medium sized painting but it has a meaning much larger than the image itself. It also took a lot longer to finish than many of my other paintings, and it has deeper interest in my concentration in it's making than many of my other summer's paintings.
It was a joy to see come into existance.

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What Has Worked;

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 Barn on the Holland Farm

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    This building had been painted earlier, just not from this angle.   I took a top downward look in this composition in oil.    I liked the perspective of the fence running downhill and swooping around into the back of the barn.   I was thinking that I had made an error in judgement when I painted the one side of the barn in shadow, but after working moreso I saw that it seemed to work since the shade is marked with details of the wooden doors, and other details worked out in blues and dark browns.   As they say, getting some distance by letting it sit for a while without me looking at it allowed me to really see that what I had done was ok in fact it worked pretty well.       I feel that this canvas is successful, but its one that a person needs to take a good look at what one is seeing before deciding if it works as a work of art or not.   You don't want to just gloss over it with a quick ...
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Two Nelson roads get scenic designation This is the road I will be located on once I move down there, it will be one great road to explore on bike and later on with easel and palette...lookn forward to it.
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Remains of an Early Virginian Church

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 The old world of European faith was rife with change when new varieties of religion left the old continent for the America's open horizons.   These remains of an older mud stone Church is still here in Central Virginia near where the Lock'n Music festival takes place, only but a mile or so to the east it still stands in its muddy sandstone way.   I didn't find out much more than it was a Church at one time where people placed their wants and needs on the Altar to the keep of a Higher Power.   I don't know what faith these remains belonged to but knowing the society around here it no doubt was a early Virginian Christian Church. 
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Lost Mid-Alantic Church in Nelson County

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     This painting was conceptualized once I saw this Church or what remains of it on the side of a country road around here near my home.   It's presence was impressive with its clean white clay brick towers where windows once stood.   One could easily tell that its walls once held a congregation in prayer on any particular Sunday a century ago or so.   Bringing it onto a canvas was a chore.   It had to be painted with care and granted it was an interpretation and hopefully mistakes were forgivable for the sake of memorializing it as a home for the southern culture held within its walls.   I played with the color of it and its fictional background.  It was all for the sake of conveying the spiritual nature of this lost building of worship. 
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