Landscape of Virginia

Working on a new painting today, I was able to visit a historic house in a part of town where you wouldn't think it would be located, but there in the woods was a very nicely designed house. It belongs to a couple at least one of whom (it maybe that both were) was once the Mayor of this city. I had the good fortune to meet both members of the house and a couple of grandchildren as I was set up painting in their front yard. The house is a beauty, it's been added on to with a nice southern exposure sun room which is very long and gets good light during the day. The front of the house reminded me of the Jeffersonian style with large columns and old red brick highlighted with white wood trim. It had a massive structure around the front entrance but it really wasn't that big of a porch once you stood on it, it just had strong presence when you were looking at it from the front yard or as you approached the house from the driveway. I only got a start on it, but I...

Beginning with the summer break, the world opened up to be a pretty nice place mostly because many of my aches have gone away. I've had time to paint, draw, workout, go to many NA meetings and otherwise do whatever I wanted to with my day. I got to draw. That's had me reflecting upon the election material on the news. It's the people watching the candidate that I find interesting, watching them in the background of a photo or video on the news is really interesting to me. All the various 'listening' expressions and the excitement shown in the faces of those in attendance of a political rally of their choosing is so unique and a real feast of facial expressions. It's something that I have been enjoying this long long election season. It's also brought me a lot of new information about the way people dress now, that I have really incorporated into my caricatures features when I draw them. I need to study them once again to get these peopl...

Today is our last school day for this year of 07-08 and I'm looking forward to seeing all the students off for the summer and then going to a teacher unwinding party at the High School. One thing that seems to have been done lately is to put cameras into the High School as a way of cutting down the trouble they have in curbing the problem of violence and just "bad behavior".. It's been in place for a couple of years I it's done that, but in thinking about it, would you want yourself to be on camera at all points when you were out in public spaces? Would you feel ok about it? What if those cameras were being manned by a group of people who wanted to keep citizens from gathering in groups of three or more and exchanging ideas? I know, it's not that way right now, but what if society changed so that it was, their cameras and computers which watched those cameras for suspecious signs could be in place by the time they took power, then what would you d...

Seeing this city from the air was a real thrill for this bike rider. I saw so much green around here with a few exceptions of what was mainly the shopping malls and the large roads connecting parts of the city together. I took one picture of Barracks Road shopping center that shows 29 North heading right up towards the horizon which looks more like a drag strip than any typical road. Like I said it was a real eye opener for me to see all of this town from the air as I did last Friday afternoon. I don't think I'll be doing that again anytime soon. With this trip taken over head of where I usually drive I can see the need for another connecting road other than just a north south connecting route.

I went flying over this little college town yesterday in a Cessna, quite a bit different than flying out on a commercial plane. We were flying at 2,500 feet altitude, it was a little bit hazy but the sky was clear enough to see for some distance but not on and on. We packed two planes with our students and some teachers too in order to take them on a flight. When they returned we packed up the same planes with three passengers a piece then they headed out again for another half-hour flight over Charlottesville. I was able to get some good photos of the land below, I was even able to photograph my own apartment from the air. A student who really loves watching planes going over head and telling anyone who will listen just what kind of plane it is was able to go on my flight up airborne with me. He actually was flying the plane for a short time, he was thrilled by the experience believe me, I know this not only because he has been talking about Cessnas for the past year in ...

Another day done , another successful day clean another day at work being a Hobart programing master teaching his trade to an apprentice, it's been a good day all said and done. We have thirteen days of school left in our school-year. But who's counting! I had time to draw a little today. I'm glad after all the sadness in the global news with the serious earthquake in China and the storm in what was Burma, it's quite frightening if you really think of it. We seem to have a planet that is saying "enough in enough, I'm hurting you for what your doing to me". When calamity becomes commonplace something is wrong with us, with people, with governments, with our life choices maybe...I just hope, just hope we can find a better less harmful way to live our lives on Mother Earth.

Working on my own projects at home can be harder work than I do during my day job at school. I cleaned the livingroom, the bathroom and recycled my dry trash. I began working on another Japanese painting too. And this was all in just the beginning of Saturday afternoon, I have another whole half of an afternoon to go. Lot's to do. Where it's all leading seems to be the expression of my choosing, I chose to paint. I chose to recycle. I chose to clean. All because of my own wants. This new painting is of a main street in the town I grew up in overseas. I included myself on a tricycle in this one. It's kind of a fun thing to see oneself that long ago in another part of the world and I was acting as if the world owned me. It's kind of ironic since I felt so honored because the Japanese people treated me with such kindness and it wasn't so long before that our American people were demonized by them during the Second WW II. I am glad to have had that...