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Showing posts from 2014

210 Douglas Ave or What's Big and Blue on Douglas Ave?

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Sometimes people call me up and ask me to paint there house. Its not that there house needs a new coat of paint but more like they want to remember it the way it is with a canvas study of it. In the past I didn't do commissions but I've found that I am missing out on a good paying challenge. For me all I did was start saying "yes" once someone might ask me while I am set up outdoors working on a landscape or something such as that, the main thing is that I started saying it instead of sending those folks away. As its turned out, I have benefited by doing so. If this is selling out well at least I can paint houses in a manner that suites me and not just making an architectural study I am making a creative work of art only of a certain object that another person has wanted me to be doing. Its been fun as I always want my painting to be so no harm done as far as I can see. This was a particularly nice house with many interesting dimensions to it. I really

"Red's Eats"

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A friend asked me to paint this spot called "Red's Eats" that's located somewhere in Maine of all places, and I just didn't get around to working on it until last night. The reason he requested this from me was due to all these characters standing in line shouted "JT's people" out to him and he thought I would enjoy working on this ques outside waiting to be fed. He took a few random photos and got them to me one day when he happen to be with me. I didn't turn him down. I was flattered he thought that of me, and that he knew me and my work well enough to link up this event with the kind of paintings I did regularly years ago. Since moving out into the countryside I don't actually go to my caricature work that often anymore, I on occasion pick up the pens and get into the craws of my imagination but not as much as I use to, my desire to do so has subsided. Age has something to do with it, or so its said. The drawing it taken

Gibsons of Scottsville's Main Drag

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The best feeling I've had in a while came when a patron and fan asked me to paint their place of business. They had seen my paintings and decided that they would like me to paint their place of business. In the past I put aside requests like these as merely not doable in the manner of the patron's wishes. In other words the painting most likely wouldn't come out the way the person who was paying for it would want it to but I put aside these ideas. So I said 'yes' in no uncertain terms. I'm not going to stop myself from doing what others would like to see anymore. Its simply a matter of being of service to my own home community, and it doesn't help that it also puts a little money in my pocket. I could be a stuffed shirt and live on my principals of just painting what I decide I aught to put on canvas or maybe I could take up the challenge and make a little money for doing so. I may be a bit of a people pleaser sometimes but it does feel goo

Rockfish River Post Office

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This out of the city experience is very bucolic as one might expect, however every once in a while something stands out as a wonderful composition. This painting is but a small ten inch by twenty inch study for a larger work to come, it is of a Post Office on the local railroad track crossing. The road that crosses the track runs along the Rockfish River for many a mile and the track crosses the river at this point over a bridge which is under the track and out of sight of the viewer of my point of sight. I plan to make the bridge a bit more apparent on the larger painting. I suppose I will get to painting it again sometime when the winds aren't blowing so stiff.

Acrylic Redux

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Sometimes I retouch older paintings and take them a little further down the road of creation to another point of existence, and such was the case with this painting. It laid around the house collecting dust until I felt that I could work on it moreso than what I had done. By bringing this painting out I think I put new ideas to work on it. By the time I finished with it I felt that it was completed now. I didn't feel that way before then. This painting is an acrylic. For me that is an area I don't have much experience in and I wish to play with it until I do. I have bought some new acrylic stuff like mediums and some paints before working on this canvas, as of this ending shown here I think I am learning some good lessons by working with more supplies. I'm hoping to show it in the winter group show coming up next month and the month of December. I enjoy looking at it, its a very warm painting, and very lively too. I like that about it.

Charming View

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While living in Charlottesville one could sometimes spot a wonderfully beautiful view while simply walking. This drawing was arrived at this way. It is a house upon a hillside on the southern side of the city. The house isn't all that noticable from the main street (Monticello Ave near Mead Ave) but if you see how slanted the hill its on is you can get the idea of whats' so special about it. The building defies gravity and sits there on that hillside with a really great view of Monticello Mountain and Brown's Mtn. It was worth remembering with this drawing. Since I no longer live in the city of Charlottesville I am glad to have my drawings as a way of remembering my past living in that city. I had my moments and the city was a place like no other. It has its charms.

"Front Street Again!!" One More Time!!

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Hey Now Hey Now!! When one gets the chance to draw its the duty, the moral obligation of the artist to do it. And so with autumn breezes blowing I got up off my duff and took off with my drawing book to head out. I found myself doing double duty, I took the recycling to the center and my drawing notebooks along for the ride. No not to draw the dump but to travel a little bit further down the road to Lovingston. Its got a lot of promise. If someone has the money to invest in some dying wooden turn of the nineteen hundred's buildings that is: I see them as museum pieces to what was not but sixteen decades ago or so. They do have style and they are sort of sculpted in a manner no longer done in buildings of this millennium. I set up on Front Street in Lovingston and got right to work. About a better day one wouldn't be able to get if one tried and so the drawing went quickly. About an hour to an hour and a half later there it was, done to the point where I coul

Train Crossing n Rockfish

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The north/south line travels passed me just a short distance away and it has had a rather unique little crossing gate house just where the road goes over it. The train seldom passes by yet this crossing captured my attention mostly because of its so tiny. There is enough room for one lineman to sit and wait to stop traffic. Now there is an electronically controlled signal but I think it maybe that the small house use to put up a man who would stop traffic once he heard the sound of the train whisel coming close by. But it is something one just doesn't see much of anymore what with the days of computer automation happening all around us, so I thought I would draw it.

Lovingston Buildings from A While Ago

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One of the nicer buildings left in the small town nearby where I now live is Lovingston,Va. It is a town with a history and I am sure the downtown that is leftover from earlier times must have stories of life within it. I just don't know what those stories consist of right now but I intend to learn about them. One of the largest buildings in the downtown area is this one with a great porch on it and that it is three floors high does say something about its former importance to the life of this city. Now it stands in disrepair though. It made for a nice study and the part of the drawing that I am showing here is only a section of the overall rendering of it in my notebook. The part of the city where this building stands is more or less uninhabited by the towns people of Lovingston. All the two hours it took to do this drawing I saw but one man passing by on the sidewalk and he was pleasant enough but I was just about to ask him "well what are you doing here?"

Drummheller's Apple Festival n Nelson County, Va.

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Sometimes its best to simply explore your home community for artistic content, I did that today by heading out to the Drummhellers Apple Festival in my home county of Nelson, Va. The fun was seeing everyone make such a big deal out of apples. Since living here, I too have been making an apple a day a big part of my life so I guess its fitting that I go to this festival. I did pick up some fine Winesaps for my daily lunch bucket. Well lunch bag I guess...but they had those types and many more in big wooden bins for sale too. I enjoyed seeing the funnel cake truck at the festival too, which is what many county fairs and festivals of all kind of varieties are really all about: an opportunity to get a funnel cake which allows one to mention that little fact whenever the subject of a county fair or any outdoor festival is brought up. But I rather liked the intense bright red color of this food truck that sold those funnel cakes, it was noticeable from many yards away. In fact

Lovingston: the Remains of a Time Gone By

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Going out on the town in Lovingston seems to mean going to the local grocerystore shopping mall, while the actual downtown area remains quite and out of the sight of pedestrian traffic. It does lend itself to a closer look at some of the architectural features done in the woodwork of the building. And so I wanted to study just that with this drawing as the result of my day on the drawing board. Right now I am studying this area for a painting which will come sometime later on, since I am back to work in the school system it might be sometime before I get around to it but it will come about to be sure. I see how this town had its heyday but now has sunk into disrepair. The paint is pealing on these buildings and people are scarce. Very few cars past down the street as I sat drawing but these buildings remain standing as a silent way of notifying people of a time gone by where people met and events happened. These buildings are no longer dwellings where they are of much use

Pen and Ink : Fiju my cat

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There is nothing better than having a cat asleep in ones lap. Such is my situation on a regular basis now a days since living with two wonderful felines since last March, Fiju and Nepal are my companions and whom I support, spoil and nourish with love and good food. Here I drew Fiju taking a short nap. She is the younger daughter of her mom Nepal. Both have a fondness for each other that goes above the spats they can get into here at Schuyler. They are both indoor cats. I don't want to subject the bird community to the agile quickness of either of them and since this is a bird migration route well it goes to say "be kind to mother nature".

Flowers : the Underpainting

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One must begin somewhere and for me well I began because I had to. Our teachers asked me if I would work with our students on another canvas as I have done in the past. Its sort of a fund raiser when we sell a painting made by myself and our students. The work is completed by our students under my direction while we are in session. I will bring it home and leave it alone as best I can but I may straighten up some small matters but leave as much as possible alone. This painting I am working on came from a photo I took during the spring a few years ago while living in Belmont which is part of Charlottesville, Va. The flowers bloom plentiful in that section of town so one spring I went out with my camera and photographed a good number of them. I took those photos and selected one to work from. On Monday I will bring this under painting that I did in Burnt Umber into school for the students to complete. I will work with them in order to put in the various color tones while

Blane's Books and Coffee; the painting

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Finding time to visit Scottsville, Va. again I brought along my paints w my easel, water and a nice straw hat to shield me from the sun. But I didn't know where I would be painting or what. I drove to downtown Scottesville and simply parked right where I found the first open space. I got out. I looked across the street and voila my subject was their. I pulled my equipment out, set it all up and got to work. Some passersby tried to sell me an easel they had no use for anymore while others simply said a nice 'Hello' and moved on. All the while the sun shone and I got my work done. Within two and a half hours of standing up I needed a break. I brought along a three legged portable stool and I set it up under a shade tree right next to my canvas and I sat down. I saw where I need to go, and beside being tired I saw where I could make a few painterly notes on the canvas and I could finish it up at home. So I did just that and I closed up shop. Then

A Colllection of Trees Sections

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Working with pen and ink has always been an enjoyment for me, I loved the effect of the ink line on paper. There is something of the 'fine' in 'fine art' with it. Ink is a strong color of black, one of the strongest colors when seen against the whiteness of a good drawing paper. I can sit for hours and entertain myself using it. I use to think I had to get loaded in order to do a good job but I've found out that using only dulls the senses and my abilities wane, so I don't do that anymore. Now I sit and enjoy the effort of getting a good vision of what I want to do and where I want to go with a drawing while I draw it. I can perform at such a better rate and be aware and enjoy the creative process rather than go through ' the creative struggle'. It is a joy. This particular drawing is one that is of a few different trees, some older trees near my home and others miles away in West Virginia. I just happen to bring my drawing notebook al

Trees in Pen and Ink

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As Eric Clapton mentioned in his last interview with Rolling Stone; "sometimes one has to simply do what's in front of him" (I'm paraphrasing him because I just through out the mag due to finishing it) and this past week I did simply that with my pen and paper pad. The results were enjoyable. In the studies I produced I found myself going back to the basic hand-eye coordination techniques I learned as a student of the arts in Philadelphia. I got into a groove with it. Since I was in the country for few days visiting some longtime friends I chose to draw trees and there were plenty of them around outside our windows from which I had my choice. I also had the advantage of good weather, large pane-glass windows sitting in air conditioning in a comfortable chair while drawing. I picked a conifer with some twisting branches and then also the trunks of a variety of these wooden giants. My enjoyment came when I freed up myself to 'get into it' and

Sunshine on Crozet Pizza

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One has to admire a town where putting in the first stoplight is seen as the beginnings of the coming collapse of the western world and independence as we know it. The small spot on the map is now in the throws of having at least doubled itself in both population and size with the recent addition of a few housing developments. Its a picturesque place one must admit. Its snug right up against the Blue Ridge range of mountains and one merely has to look to the west and one need to peer upwards to see the sky from any vantage point. The mountains rule for certain backgrounds, in this vantagepoint of my art I picked a spot that looks away from the Blue Ridge and towards the east. I am right at the intersection where the stoplight in question was put in a few years ago. The reason for picking this spot wasn't to get away from the mountain view (but that is ok) but rather to have a look at the Crozet Pizza. Its a landmark of a store. All who have grown up within fifty miles o

Faber Rd View Southward

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This is one of the most beautiful spots in the lower 48 states or such is my own belief about my home area. In driving back and forth to work I often will take a short cut even if it is a slower way home. Reason being; its just nice to see the countryside with many of the roadside views looking like they belong on a postcard. This painting is the result of taking one of those shortcuts home. It is back off the beaten path somewhat, but it is not a hidden view it is simply not a view many people see. It is in southern Albemarle County just north or around Nelson County in Central Virginia but it is on a back road. The farm shown has two owners. These two elderly women still live their, working on the farm even in their eighties. One can see that this spot has some history although not to the extent European farms might but enough for us around here. In the background is Walton's Mountain, yes the same one mentioned in Earl Hammner's book "the Wal

Batteau Festival all Down the James River

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In Virginia there are many rivers that run across the Commonwealth. One of them is the James River which runs far into the mountains for its origin and down past where I am at Howardsville and then on past Scottsville and on to Richmond, Gochland and finally into the Chesapeake Bay. Before roads where maintained other than for being horse trails rivers were the major means of transporting large amounts of drygoods. To do this there were a fleet of 'longboats' that traveled up and down the James River moving these goods along to the early settlers here in Central Virginia. In order to understand this some locals have refurbished and renewed a few of these old 'longboats' into operating with the help of some hearty volunteers. Once a year now, people man the longboats and a group of them float on downstream to Gochland from up near Lynchburg, Virginia. They come into Scottsville every June and I happen to catch site of them this year as they pulled into shore

Drawing from the Subconscious: My Ego Spoke

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I often enjoy live theater, at least this was the case when I lived in Philadelphia and also somewhat here in Central Virginia (Charlottesville,Va.) my theater attendance has been infrequent but I did go. I sat in many an audience during a live performance of said playwrite watching actors unfolding a tale. From stories teaching us a meaning to simply absurd situations unfolding before us I was their sitting taking it all in. But this year was somewhat of a different slant on written plays, I was in one as an actor. It was a small bit part but none the less I was onstage. I really enjoyed it. I saw it as a completion of my reading drama/comedy to seeing it performed and now being in it. The circle was now complete for my enjoyment of drama/comedy. And this moment showed up in my drawing from my imagination this spring. When I drew this drawing I didn't know where it came from but I could picture this man on stage having his ego stroked by an appreciative audien

"808 Monticello Ave" and the Painting of It

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Sometimes the weather just ain't so bad for working outdoors either on gardening, woodwork, bikeriding, or perhaps even art via "plein air". Such was the case this past Saturday during the mid-day section of sunlight. June 7th I found myself working on painting what might just be called a "home portrait" or simply put I was painting a house as an artist and not a commercial house painter. Forgive me for getting so technical but if I am not specific about this point some people take it that I can give them an estimate of house much it would take to do their house. But they don't mean on canvas but rather putting up a new color on their place of residence...well no matter you understand I know. This particular house belongs to a really unique couple who are younger but not too much so, the wife ran a gallery in town for a while called "Firefish" which I did submit many paintings over the last three years or so, selling a few too from

'Pen and Ink' Keeping My Creative Fire Alive

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While waiting the summer art production rush I go through every year, I often resort to pen and ink drawings. I use pen and ink for three reasons: first, to keep my artistic eye alive and well, second, to think creatively since this takes less materials to create so less is lost if it doesn't turn out well, and thirdly, it is very easy to set up and work with when one feels the urge to 'make art'. My reasons are clearly one's of maintaining myself during the times when I can't get to the palette and brush since there just isn't enough time to do so when I only have a weekend's time-frame in which to spend on my efforts. The laundry, grocery shopping and general household chores have to be done in that time-frame as well....so.....that old saying comes to mind "one has only so many hours in a day" I do enjoy working in pen and ink though, its not like I have been exiled to the Siberia of the paper and pen. No not at all, that just isn

Most Often Asked Question Thesedays "Have you done any more art?"

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I'm currently not painting due to the need to "make a living" by working in the schools. I work as a teaching assistant with special needs young adults who are moving from the school world to the 'real world'. I help them with living skills such as how to effectively wash there own dishes to managing to wash laundry. Then we also do some 'job training' by working alongside of our students in the city's community at a local business. It's truly a change of pace for me and it is a very meaningful job to do with people. Until the end of the school year I will be devoting my fulltime to taking care of my needs for work and then taking care of my home as well. I bought an electric lawn mower and it's great, it works well and I don't really have a problem dealing with the cord while mowing my lawn. Its a lot more fun and easier on my constitution than the bladed pushmower that I was using, that one didn't have a motor. Its

811 Monticello Ave: A House of a Valued Friend

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A friend who was of a great help in my artistic career asked me if I would paint her house for her. She didn't want me to paint the sides of it with a roller, oh no....she was looking for me to do a 'house portrait' of her dwelling. I certainly jumped at the offer due to my enjoyment of painting the buildings of the Belmont section of Charlottesville. I had already painted many of the homes just a block north of her so I certainly said I would be more than glad to do so. It was the second of three nice cool yet sunny days when I set up across the street from her home on Monticello Ave in the Belmont section of town and I got to work. The work when somewhat fast. I had a good view, a view that said "it's just right" to me. It was a view slightly from an angle so I could see both the front and the right side of the home. I like this because adding in the right side gives the image some depth and some volume in space to it. With out the side of th

Busy Opening to Spring

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It's been 'spring break' for me from my day to day job; because I've had the free time this week I got into my painting. I saw where there were three days of promised sunlight and so I set out on the first day to paint for others. The first painting was of the small Virginia town that hugs the mountains of the Blue Ridge called Crozet, that painting was done in one sitting (or standing since I painted it "plein air") with the view of the mountains in the background. There was an unusual end to my day painting the one of Crozet; a young lovely came out once I was done and packing up my equipment into my car and exclaimed "oh how wonderful, I was able to watch the whole thing" how strange I thought, I'd never been given a comment like that before. It seemed she was sitting in a framing shop right across the street from where I was set up painting the 'Crozet' painting, she sat looking out the large plate glass windows lo

Abstactionist and Where One Can Take It

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I don't often paint from geometric sources but yesterday I did. I played with circles intersecting and forming rings and wistful lines on a plain of bright yellow. It was a fun painting and I simply put it all together as I was going along. I didn't have an end point in mind when I began but I knew when I was done when I arrived at that point. The painting ended when it looked so. As I've grown up I have a greater appreciation for the Post Modern abstractionist that lived during the late fifties and early sixties. I know it began in the early twentieth century with such painters and Picasso and Matisse yet I think it flowered in the late twentieth century with artist in the Post Modernist era of the nineteen sixties. Abstract work seems easy until one begins to make it. It takes an inner idea of what one is looking for and also where the materials will allow you to take a painting. There are limits. The really good abstractionist could see where a painti

A Winter Day for My Good Memories

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The lite snowfall painted a nice scene with the Rockfish River dam that sits in the river right below my house. I can hear the river in warmer weather when my windows are open but with today's homes being so insulated its difficult to discern that water spilling over the dam sound. I love it when the winds are right and the silence is broken by the roar of the waterflow. The home is one with large areas inside so I can set up my easel and paints and have plenty of space to paint my canvases. With this situation one would say "Wow, you really have it made!" And I do but it's a long way from where I am to anything resembling culture or stores or restaurants or lets go so far as to say...I'm in the middle of the very edge of the know world here. But then it's a place with little interference from the outside during my times of wanting to be alone. The small cost, as well as a good car which the new Chevy Cruze Eco has proven to be for me well it all

"Hopes for the Sycamores"

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Looking at a painting for a year or so one can see that so much more could be done with it. In this vein, I took a brush and palette up to work on "Cloven Sycamores" which had been sitting in a blind alley (or my storage room for artwork) for some time. I began this one in my bedroom just looking out over the river below (it's not the James but the Rockfish River which does flow into the James River)me as I look out from the back of my house. A good friend said that I needed to do a painting of those two trees. I said "No way man!!" I felt it would be just too big of an object to fit into any canvas of mine. Then a year when by n I was simply pulled into that view when I was just gazing on afternoon upon that pair. I began it in 2013. I had the drop cloth bought simply for the reason of protecting the bedroom carpet from my easel's drippings. I set up on a sunny day and when to work. The start didn't take long I think in five hours I had

The Work Goes N Before the Paint Goes On

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With life giving us the need to have a job that pays I seldom have the time during the school year to paint what I want to paint. Not to be redundant but one must be ready for what time one has to actually change into ones painting clothes and get out their and work on a canvas. To be ready I try to make some canvases rather large canvases before I find the time comes in which I can go on out and create. Doing this requires some time spent in my studio where I store my work making the canvases from stretchers and raw cotton duck and gesso. This takes three coats of gesso (gesso is a combination of rabbit skin glue and titanium white paint which is non-toxic) to make the canvas oil paint ready. Without this stuff the paint would soon rot the cotton duck that canvas is made of, so we coat it with gesso first before applying paint to the surface. It takes the good part of an afternoon to make a canvas, but once its done the actual painting on it can wait for a very long time.

"Scottsville's Main Street" and the Painting Done Plein Air.

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The winter season isn't known as the best season to get outside and make some art but well I went out anyway last week. I traveled down to a small town on the James River known as Scottsville. Its the home of an old riverboat station where the traders of commerce would travel back and forth down the James to Richmond to do business. The river still runs and the town is still a working community although it is doing its best to attract new business by reinventing itself. I went down their to paint last summer and it was a nice experience especially since I finished five or six good canvases working on that towns streets. I went back with canvas on break from the cold weather, it was in the forties or low fifties while I was out in a parking spot with my canvas. I had to deal with a low breeze though and I did so by putting rigging on the upper corners of my canvas. I literally tied the canvas to the Julliard easel with wire. It worked too. I spent the day painting