Landscape of Virginia

This painting is a winner for me and how I view my art. I often get the comments that my color range is bright, well I want it to be this way. My colors in this streetscape are simply a heightened color range from what I was looking at in Scottsville. The buildings in the painting are similiar to those I was looking at but yet I took some liberties in depicting them as a narrow bunch and certainly a lot more colorful than what I was looking at across Main Street. I do look at what I am painting but not all that much to say I was working directly off of life, it was more that I was working "from life" and changing it. I paint with enjoyment and I think that is of utmost importance if I am to continue in this endevor. This particular painting is rather on the large size being that it's 30"x 44" in it's canvas size. The reason I like it is because I had plenty of room to investigate my subject of buildings. While doing so my composition came togethe

I love living here in the countryside of Central Virginia, its divine at times like this one where I spotted butterflies swarming around my backyard. There were seventeen Monarchs and a few smaller ones flying on a bush. Truly a beautiful site to behold. I grabbed my camera and simply sat among them for a while and they seem to not mind me being their so I snapped a few photographs and then moved on. I was glad to see so many Monarchs since there was that huge die-off of them in Mexico that we all read about, they winter down their from what I've read and they seemed to have gotten caught in a deep freeze while wintering in that migration spot. Along with the butterflies where a good number of bees that were making use of the pollen provided by this thistle shrub and feeding on the magenta blooms, it was a real pleasure to witness this morning and actually for the past week or so.