Landscape of Virginia

Another hot morning , but one needs to brace oneself for what is to come but getting underway early so when the oven-door opens one is fully engaged in life. Painting outdoors is rather tough to do under these skies but if one is clever enough one finds ways to cope. This artist likes to get a start onsite and then finish up the canvas at home. It works when one has a good camera to capture an image from which to work when one is the comfort of the studio. I've done three or four canvases this way and it does help quite bit to be at home. Refreshments and various paints can be easily accessed so that nothing is left behind while working on outdoor scenes. Fortunately for me, I do have a good camera and a system for showing these images on an HDTV screen, from there it's easy to work on a canvas using such a system. The results are this painting of "Greenwood Station Rd." which I wasn't able to work onsite due to there was no shoulder to ...

This summer has been cool so far, but today was my first time in a while where I was outside drawing and I felt like it was time to quit because I was too hot. So it's finally hot, I continued anyway and got a nice drawing of Locol and a new shop beside it that has yet to open. I posted it. I am thankful to have made the acquaintance of a graduate of Chicago Art Institute at the Virgina Artist in Action Gallery. He's retired and lives just south of here in Nelson County. His name is David Golden Jr. and he and I talked. He was good enough to remind me of a few steps in painting that I had forgone for the sake of "getting it done and getting right to it", but they are important steps that a painter shouldn't overlook. I have been. So I made note of them and now am incorporating them into my painting routine. It's working out well. One important one is to make a preliminary sketch before committing to painting a canvas. This has been a ...