Landscape of Virginia

A new summer to live through is just the beginning but I have the very best feeling for the promise of my art this summer. Although I am not painting right now, I am doing art. I've discovered that doing some preliminary drawings before committing to a canvas is the way I'm going to start this summer's art season. I am taking my drawing book along on my daily journeys, and it's paying off big time. I know as long as I don't wait too long I will benefit from taking a good look at buildings and such that I might be painting before I do them in oils. A study is a time when one draws or works in charcoal before painting and it's also a time to take a closer, and more in depth look at subjects or in this case buildings and cityscape's. It's quick... and I can step back and then go further into them...I can take them home and work on shading or crosshatching and such techniques before they are "done". It works quite well ...

With the passing of a good student of mine in a rather sudden and unexpected manner, my life is on a pause cycle for the moment. I'm assessing the life I have and I see where the gifts are and how the gifts are ongoing in this process of what we call Recovery. I'm not sure how or why but life does go on no matter what, and we are only a small part of a group of people with whom we interact. Life does continue with us or without. But the people we touch do take the time to remember us if we and when we leave them. This I know. So it is that I remember a student I had named Ryan. I will occasionally stop and think well of he and I. People live, people die and people move on, but while we are here we can try to make a good impact on our friends, fellow travelers, students and co-workers, I think I enjoy letting on what has worked best for me in life's activities with my students perhaps best of all. But it comes in as a close second to making a painting onsite...

      It's been a good weekend .   Since I was quite sick Friday and Saturday both Sunday and today have been really enjoyable in that I've been feeling much better and doing a lot more.   I reworked an old painting and then I prepared another painting for a collaborative effort that we will do this week at school.   I will have the help of an Afghanistan refuge who is interested in what I do.   We've made a few canvases together on the theme of 'kites' and this is another one, but its more developed than the previous ones.   I'm looking forward to going to work and finishing it with him this week.       We also have graduation at our school branch this week.   A real thrill to be sure.  A young man will be graduating who I have worked with for the past eight years.   As a graduation present I am giving him and his mom a painting of Post High which is the painting I reworked this weekend to give it a special touch.   I'm hoping he will remember his time her...

Mann I could believe the way those baseball boys of summer played ball today at Davenport Stadium here in Charlottesville. They were excellent to say the very least about them. I sat with a friend who was nice enough to remind me that there were going to be games this weekend, and that they would miss me if I chose to do other things. Well after a minutes thought, I went. It was impressively incredible to watch the athletic abilities of these young men perform against another ACC rival which was Duke. They blew it wide open in the seventh with a grand slam homerun by Jarrett Parker who by doing so improved his RBI to 53 for the season so far. It ended with Duke (who was proving itself to be a good opponent with a win two days before and only loosing by one run in close one the day before) loosing it 12-1. This is a young team, and I'm looking for a lot more to come next year. Today they retired three jerseys and said goodbye to three outstanding players who will no...

It's a hot hot day, but nice none the less when you consider the colder weather we just got through. I was able to enjoy a full week of work. I actually enjoy my job and I don't regret being on the job from day to day. My best enjoyment besides painting is jumping on my bike and riding off to the gym, working out and then riding on back home. A cool wet shower is what follows. I use to hate "jocks" who enjoyed such things as exercise but today it's my turn and it's not a bad lifestyle to be "into". The joy is that it makes you feel good for doing it, for being active can actually make one "feel good". Another side benefit is good health. Health problems seem to go by the wayside when one exercises regularly and for a good enough amount of time per day or as I do every other day. For I believe the body needs a slight amount of rest between workouts, so I take every other day off to rest myself. It seems to work for ...

The 23rd CPRCNA in Ocean City Maryland this past weekend was awe inspiring for me. The speakers were of the best quality and shared very highly motivating spiritual principals of our program with we who were willing to sit in a workshop. I enjoyed the main speaker as well on Saturday night. I've been in a room with over two thousand Recoverying Addicts before but there were many more than that in attendance during the main speakers talk with us. The main speaker was from the west coast and brought with him a new version of sharing with the experience of having worked our program for many many years, and he was by no means perfect, no he was very real with us. Nothing could have been more helpful to me last weekend than to hear how he's done it. He's been sponsored by men who quite literally wrote the Basic Text, and help found NA in California back in the early 1950's. And you know, he was very youthful in his attitude and approach to 'wh...

Then I went to U.Va. to see their exhibit of modern European art such as some Picasso prints and others from that era, I had a good time and stopped in to see if my good friend Phil was at home. He's in a new building over their at the art school, it's going by the name of Ruffin Hall. It's nice. I had a guided tour of the four or more story building. The art showing was inventive and fresh. It was a welcome change from what it was before they had the room to move their arms around so they didn't bump into each other as they painted. One can see the new exhibit areas are wonderfully big and roomy. I saw some huge portraits of street people that must have been ten feet in height all done with pastel, charcoal and some tempera or acrylic paints. The thing about it was that it was street people painted upon cardboard which is very appropriate due to the fact that many homeless sleep on such material and make signs with it...it was impressive to see thes...