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;

What a Good Day For a Feast

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I enjoy the Holiday's but they seem so empty of people. The town empties out because everyone is with there family outside of this place at least this place is emptied out. I'm not feeling alone though. I had a wonderful Thanksgiving feast at my workplace with our students. It was the very best meal of the year for me. Our staff puts it together and they do an outstanding job every year. I get away with buying some freshly made rolls from a local bakery. It's not much in comparison to others efforts in making the feast as good as it is but it is enjoyed none the less. It really great to see our students all together eating, talking and enjoying some really good food. I am headed out to Earlysville to enjoy another feast today with an artist friend and his family. I will be fun. Ten of my paintings will be featured in a show called "Comic Apparition" at a restaurant in Richmond by the name of "Positive Vibe " that is run (all emplo...
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Winding Up This Summer's Artwork

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The Summer is coming to a close for me, with schools reopening I will be going back to work starting this Friday morning. Our beloved students will return the following Wednesday. I can say that it's been a very active summer for me with me finishing many painting during this break and joyfully I loved making each one. The big change has been feeling good about the work I have done both once they were done and also while they were in the 'cooker' where I was active in the making of them. This summer I focused on making 'overall looks' to the scenes which I painted partial storefronts of last summer. Those were mere studies ( or preparations ) for what I had in mind and it was a long wait during the school year '09-'10 until I could get to them this past two months of late June, July and early August. I say two months because I both took some time to see distant places and I count June and August as only half month's work time on this summer...
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A Nice Day and Meeting a Tech Graduate

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A nice peaceful day with a good dose of physical fitness at Gold's Gym, that's how today worked itself out as being: it just doesn't get any better, no amount of money could buy it and no one else could live it and enjoy themselves as much as I did today. I had time to read the book Chesapeake by Mitchener, and listen to music I love, and to be with a cat who's company I am enjoying and learning about at the same time. Her name is Oreo. I had time to pray and I took advantage of it and did just that. I also had time to talk to a young man at the gym, his name is Matt and he graduated from Va Tech last year. He knew the young Koren man who shot all those innocent students from classes he took at Tech last year. He talked about the way that man never acknowledged people who tried to talk to him or teachers who tried to involve him in class by asking him questions. Whenever he was asked a question he would look away or not verbalize any answer of any kind to his f...
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Paint What U Don't Want to Paint, Just to See If...

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Looking where I didn't want to go to paint I ended up working on a scene with the thought that "one who is a painter can make a good canvas out of anything" meaning to me that a good painter can perform well under any circumstances. So I went to Crozet, Va. and worked on a canvas that was to me a real chore. I set up behind a train station on the otherside of the tracks looking downward on a streetscene that had some buildings and a mountain scene behind it all. All this in a very small area of sight, one would unusually simply move on to some other view, but not me. I felt like seeing how well this idea that a good painter can make something look well despite the visual problems that lay within the context of the canvas. For me it was a labor of 'let's do it anyway no matter how I feel' and so it went for a few hours on a sunny day early in the week. The sun had come out and there was a short break in all the rain we've been subjected to so I cou...
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Hamner Crossing: The Oil

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Sometimes as an artist one will come across a scenic place that is just calling out to be put into an oil painting. Such was this spot in Nelson County right where the railroad tracks going North and South pass through the County. It has plenty of space, and visual impact one might expect from a railroad crossing. From as far back as Edward Hopper (which isn't that far of a stretch) the railroad scenes have been a real draw for we visual artist. Rails have such great and large visual props. This crossing caught my attention with its two crossing guards and lights. It is so structured and its contrasted by the chaos of mother nature all around it. So here we have order surrounded by chaos, what a site of novelty and the promise of good subject matter for my canvases. I started by photographing the scene. I took perhaps thirty or so photos from one side of the tracks but doing it from all angles. I simply walked far down the road and then walked back towards the g...
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