Landscape of Virginia

The area here is surround with some wonderfully lush greenery. In my last painting of a striking red brick Church sitting among fields of green foliage got me to put out my easel and paints. I got to work on a very beautiful morning and spent four and a half hours painting it. The work certainly paid off for me. I did hit the sky up with the movement of pigment giving it a feel of moving air but most of the painting was done on the spot where I began it. The location is just off of "Irish Highway" or what is now Rt 6 about two miles east of Rt 29. It's my third painting from this spot. I've worked looking east and west, the scenes were very full of details which I enjoy painting. I certainly became immersed in the making of all my paintings that I did on this location. I am hoping to do more pastoral paintings because I am very pleased with these landscapes but I just don't know if I will have the energy or if the temperatures will hold themselv...

Yesterday I had the opportunity to take a good look at the O-Hill trail. It has been used quite a lot over the years. I heard from a reliable source that it started as an equestrian trail and not as a biking trail. I am pleased that bikes were allowed on it without being outlawed from it as can happen from what I've read in magazines from the west. It was an outstanding day for riding yesterday, I enjoyed getting up early on Sunday and taking off on a pristine morning with clear light shinning and helping me to see. I took my camera with me. The rider on the trail is just someone I ran into on the rim trail who didn't mind having his picture taken. What's good is to be healthy enough to make it up the hill to these wonderful trails. Not all people of my age are so lucky. I count my blessings as I look at these photos of my trail riding. So far, I've ridden on Walnut Creek trails, The GW Parkway trail, the Hanncock Maryland trail (24 miles of it) a...

This hill and woods are part of the University of Virginia's Observatory Hill. It houses the planitary observatory and it also is know for it's hiking, and biking trails. I have often ridden on them and enjoy seeing it from this point of view. The biking/hiking trails run from the water tower arond to that building way to the left of the hill and of course they run up to the Observatory itself. Once one is on the trails a person can run all over this hill on a network of trails that run around/ up and down the small mountain. As you can see it is right nearby the stadium where U.Va. football has it's homefield. It was a joy to fly over it last year and snap this photo of it.

Nelson County has a wonderful road that runs through it that goes by the name of "Irish Rd". It's otherwise known as Rt 6 but to those in the know it's "Irish Road'. The scenic highway runs though some of the most wonderful old farming land in the low mountains of the Piedmont for the Blue Ridge mtns. It is a winding, and somewhat unexpectedly ruff and also somewhat hard to drive road. It's only two lanes all the way from it's beginnings in northwestern Nelson County to it's endpoint in Richmond....I might be wrong but I think it's one of the most traveled highway in this part of Central Virginia. That brings me to me sitting in a field surrounded by grassland and wildflowers with an ideal view of the rolling lanes of Rt 6 sitting just over the rise...and so this painting came about on a hot summers day. In fact I believe it was on the very first day of summer for the year it was painted. I did it in two sittings both lastin...