Landscape of Virginia

The best part of today's digital age for this painter is being able to work indoors with images. I now set up indoors more often. However last summer I was hauling everything outdoors in order to paint. When I painted outdoors it was nice to see people and strike up a conversation with the public while I worked in my oils onsite. But the help of being nearby my creature comforts of my home won me over this year. Now I am working from photos I have taken outside and then put up on my laptop as a screensaver which shortcuts the need for heading outdoors. Even as a smaller image I still think I am 'getting it right', but I have yet to hear from others as to whether or not they think I am doing as well or better in my 'plein air' paintings of resent times. I certainly am not a fan of working out in the heat as I have in the past but working from the seclusion of my studio does have its appeal. Temperature control, cool indoor running water (and such), being ...

Sometimes a painting doesn't fare so well in transporting it to art events and such, such was the case with this painting I did recently of the Nelson County Courthouse in Lovingston, Va. I was taking it into a show along with another rather large painting, and I laid it flat facing upwards with another painting over it and a cloth between the two. When it came time to take it out, I removed the top one and then pulled off the cloth to discover pieces of thread and 'stuff' (there just isn't another word for it) were sticking to the canvas's paint. It stopped me in my tracks only to think to myself "that painting was too wet to travel" and I guess it was. I was anxious to get my work into the summer show that I put aside all other considerations about it's availability to travel safely and be handled safely. I won't do that again. So I sandpapered it down. Then I began to paint, or rather repaint the surface over again. In doing ...