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;

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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Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth, creator of Rat Fink: A son remembers

Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth, creator of Rat Fink: A son remembers Here is one of the early influences of my artwork. I use to love seeing his model caricatures in my neighbors window. Chris Pegg certainly didn't know it but it helped my develop an idea of "My People" in my caricatures that I've done over the years. Big Daddy Roth showed my how to have fun with my pen and paper back when I was fifteen and had a vivid imagination to share with 'the world of art'....I have much to thank this guy for,,,his nerve is one of them,,,he didn't mind it if he offended the more conservative of those with his outrageous gory big tooth rats and such...I really enjoyed it. It was an age when being offensive wasn't nearly as extreme as it is today, his work was cutting edge for the time. Afterall, the Beatles had just come to New York for there first concert if that gives you any idea of how unique he was at his height.
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Photos and Editing After A Night of Shooting

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The days are long, the night is cool : an excellent time for photography and I got to it this past weekend. I like the new way of editing photos with software such as Picasa 3 that I only plug because I am using that in doing these photos. I went to the sepia-tone in some of these night photos. We who take photos (which seems to be most everyone thesedays) can take night photos if you can change your ISO to a higher number, the higher the number the higher the amount of light that will register in your camera's sensors. So night photos are now able to be done quite readily due to the amazing speeds that ISO can go to now with the advent of digital photography. It's just amazing to me and so I have been trying it out with good results. Then I tinker with the image changing it to a sepia-tone and sometimes giving it higher color plus adding a grain texture...truly something else.
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Stop and Realize What We're A Part Of Here

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Tomorrow local elections take place in this fair city. The surrounding county also is holding elections for their board of supervisors which is pretty important seeing how this area is facing so much growth. It's a good place to live but if it gets too crowded it's not going to give us anything but headaches to live with on a daily basis. I'm hoping that somehow someone will realize that if new people move in here they need to have enough of a network of support for these new people meaning roads, schools, water treatment and all that means less green areas. We need to stop and look at what green areas can turn into growth areas and which never should. The main thing is "where are these people who are to move into these new homes and condos be coming from?" or is this wasted building. I see those condos built behind the West Main Street train station and no one is moving into those places. They haven't had much new people in them for the last t...
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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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