Landscape of Virginia

Another two weeks and I will put away my easel and paints for my jobsite clipboard and such other teaching equipment because classes begin then. Before heading back to school I have had time to paint this summer and such is the result: it's titled :" Personal Dehumanization or Understanding Relationship: It's Up To You" it's an oil painting that is about three foot square and it's new. My work this summer has been an off and on affair but they do come into being occasionally this being one of those times when it clicked pretty well. I enjoy the "crispness" as one person put it to me last night when showed it to him. I think the quality of the painted surface has improved a great deal with the more time I've put into the making of my canvases. With more time comes a better understanding of what techniques work and which don't so I have better control in getting the effects I am looking for when I paint. The character with the wei...

There is a place in eastern Pennsylvania that holds a small town feel and has very few citizens in it's rooms/homes but does have a really nice look.. The other feature it has is a restaurant. It's a little diner which serves some of the best home brewed coffee I've tasted. The diner was in a strip mall. It's in a part of town of love where many men/women are in slim and healthy looking shape. Then there are kids who zip on by on their Razor scooters. All the time others simply sleep off their beer buzz on a hotel porch. A few of the streets had much of an affluent look to them. Most of those whom I met where friendly. This little town was where I stayed for a few nights on a recent trip. I can say it was hot, but yet I got out on my bike and rode a river trail next to the upriver part of the Schuylkill River just north west of Philadelphia and that was fun. The trail was one I thought was for biking but it turned out that it was made more for locals ...

Preparing to take a much needed vacation from the ongoing work done here in Charlottesville...I'm leaving it all behind for a little while to head up to see some friends in Berkeley Springs and then onto Philadelphia to visit someone important in my life. It should be a real joy to do all this in the next week. I'm thankful to have gott'n a good number of paintings done already in the first half of my summer break. I am hopeful about getting some more done once I return. I have some larger canvases that are ready to be painted upon and it maybe that I might feel like heading back to the comic supermarket with my brushes and paint. That's my feeling today, and I'm going to take my time driving, no need to get their five minutes faster because there is a slower truck in front of me that I've got to pass...no wwaaayyy baby!! I'll just slow it down. The painting I'm showing today was a little afterthought of whimsy due to painting houses with nothi...

The new day brings art into the realm of possibilities. So it has gone this summer once awake I can see how making something new and thoughtful can happen with a little bit of effort. I gather my cat and check to make sure he is ok, that he has water, dry food and that the A/C is on for him. Once that is taken care of I gather my equipment and the new fresh canvas that I put together a couple of months ago just for this quick exit purpose and I split. My car is my artbox, it has my traveling Julianne easel and paints, medium with my brushes in a box with them all. I take off. Once out, I have a preconceived idea of some possible sites along a street I decided I should concentrate on for this summer's work. In the previous days I have driven up and down it slowly looking at the various vantage points with houses of interest in view. I think of a part of the street where there might be a house or two with interesting architectural features and so that is where I park....

In becoming a member of Mc Guffey I am able to access their drawing group that meets three times a week with a live model which one may draw from in order to improve one's drawing skills. Some people think all one gets out of doing such drawings is "a bunch of drawings of a nude standing around" when one is done. I have to disagree, if one becomes disciplined in drawing the human body then one can move on into the world around us. Due to the fact that to my thinking the human being is one of the most complicated forms to master drawing. To be convincing one must master many abilities in drawing and art before one can say they 'have it down', I always find the human form to be the very best challenges in art to draw and I doubt anyone actually ever masters the skill because each model brings so much new forms to light. But maybe that's just me. I plan to attend as many groups as I can to get into the skills it takes to do the human being convincingly enou...

The end result wasn't all that bad. It was a fun one to mess with, I brought out all I could to keep it interesting for both me and the viewer. I think one needs to look at the surface of those red walls closely in order to get the full enjoyment of this painting of the Blood Red House on the streets of Charlottesville.

The summer painting season got off with a blast of painting outdoors. I set up the very day after being released from work obligations. It was a very cool breezy day when I set up my outdoor easel and got to work under the shade of a street tree. It became a desirable place and time to paint. I worked in the morning and enjoyed the weather, I felt like the day was made by God for me and me alone. It was perfect to work outdoors in and I did so. The resulting painting wasn't the best of all my efforts but it was ok. I was asked to do one by the owner of this house that actually did catch my attention due to it's wonderfully designed and built porch on the front of this corner house. It's very typical of those Civil War era homes that saw it's children and husband go off to the War from it's porches, and so I felt drawn to it in some odd but strong way. And so I set up and painted it.