There is nothing like a group of loving caring people for a good Thanksgiving dinner...which is what I enjoyed tonight. It's the meaning of friends and family that one can comprehend in times like these pictured here.
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What Has Worked;

A Smaller Painting on the Same Theme

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I finished what I was working on during Thanksgiving here at home just a few hours ago. It is an acrylic painting. A smaller one that took some work to complete but it is nice just the same. The subject is one that is repeated from the one I just finished. That larger one of "Mincer's" is a rather more significant painting on. I wanted to work on this painting in a plastic based paint (acrylics) just to see if I could do it. I needed to test myself in this newer medium in order to know just how does this paint hold up doing the things I usually do in oils. It handled differently yet it was better in working with varying colors on a flat plain. In varying colors it worked such that one can alter one color with many others in order to produce "bright changes" from spot to spot on the same area of the canvas. I was glad to see how this could be worked out. There were other abilities acrylics have that are unique to this medium but I won't ...
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The Town of Shenandoah Virginia

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We rode up the Shenandoah valley hugging the eastern side northward from Afton and Waynesboro, when we came upon an old railroad stopover town that was pretty much deserted. The town is just south of Luray and it's called "Shenandoah". The town was a layover town on the railroad line that went up and down the valley and the engineers and many workers of the trains would stop in here for there nighttime rest spot. Since the trains no longer spend time on an overnight layover here the small town has died out. It's deserted and lay barren but some trains do hang out on the tracks which still run between it's "First St." and the river nearby. It's got a nice feel to it, it's got a wide not so long lay of the land, and it's gott'n a grant that improved the streets and facades of it's remaining buildings. It just doesn't have any people save a few holdouts. We ran into one man who had simply bought ...
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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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Was That A Spring Day this week or What?

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Bike Rides always perk me up, two days ago I got out and I am still thinking about how nice of a ride it was for me. Heading out on the Rivana Trail down at the river was truly a delightful time. The air was cool. The river was flowing well, and the light was that special type of winter's light that comes in so low and yellow from the horizon at dusk. I brought my camera and stopped a couple of times to take photos. That ride took me out from the gym and back into reality of how beautiful it is around here if only you go out looking for it. What fun huh? I'll tell you I enjoyed my ride. I even saw a friend running in the other direction from the way I was headed. It wasn't such a bad thing to have a warm day in the beginning of March to break that indoor feeling of being cramped up and drying out to being full of life's warmth again.
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Fall 09 in Charlottesville

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Autumn is here with a touch of winter to boot. It's come a little bit early for this part of the country but it's here none the less, its just not expected that's all. We're having a day of overcast skies with the promise of snow showers tomorrow and snow coming on the other side of the Blue Ridge which is only about a fifteen minute drive from where I am. The chill in the air made one of our students shout out "I smell snow" yesterday morning, and while I couldn't argue with the fact that one could detect the chilly moisture in the gray skies , it still was only forty some degrees outside. I think we just aren't use to the cold yet. This year the summer jumped directly into winter with nothing much in between. It's quite something to behold, one day seventy degrees and clear blue skies and then forty the very next day with heavy rains. One never knows, this sort of thing keeps life interesting at least and I am thankful for t...
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