The River

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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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Those Missing Florida Votes

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Remember the election of 2004 when they announced that they were missing 10's of thousands of votes from a mostly black precient in Florida, I was wondering how that happened and just where did those votes go. So I came up with this cartoon while wondering about it. I suppose anything could have happened but as it turned out that many votes could have turned the election of George W. Bush over to Al Gore if they had been counted, that is if those votes really were lost to the winds and not counted. I only heard one account of it on the news back then, I wonder if it was true or not. I never really heard much more about it.
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Scottsville's Smaller Shops

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A small town nearby is Scottsville, it was the main avenue to Richmond via longboat in the days of Jefferson. The place is struggling to survive now a days with a advent of superhighways and fast moving cars. People drive right through the place and cars seldom stop into the businesses located in that small town. Its only twenty miles south of Charlottesville on Rt 20. The town possesses a literary coffee shop, an Italian restaurant and other businesses of interest to a visitor from the outter reaches of the Universe. I liked this little image I put into paint of the hodgepodge of small stores located near the city hall (the last building on the right hand side). Its really a charming town.
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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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