Landscape of Virginia

The grocery store can be a trip: whenever I go thesedays it's late at night. People dwell in it for a long time I am certain that some just never leave, they are simply perpetual shoppers. I on the other hand like to have it all set in paper or a list which I can read, find, cross off and then check out. Quicker, simpler the better it is for me. Last night I went in and low and behold the place was mine, not many people powerdriving their carts into mine, it was an open field...and it was fun. I loaded up and then headed out to the self-checkout. Then out to my car and a quick look at my receipt to see where I saved a penny or two, which always makes me smile a little. Pennywise and pound foolish I just might be...but I'm getting by with my life expenses all paid up. These shoppers in this drawing are of the type I see on an average day. Certainly I am lying because I make them up in my head, but I know that I have seen people like these guys but to a degre...

"The world goes by and if you don't grab it by the horns so will your chances go by" as someone once said ( I just can't remember who exactly said such a thing but I liked it when I heard it thus remembered it) such it is with art. One must take the drive to create and go take it into one's day to day life. So I do. I occasionally bring along my sketchbook with me into the city, here I sat down for twenty minutes and sketched a couple of scenes across the street and simply "crocies" (forgive me if I misspell it) that took no time at all but when I got them home I was very thankful for having made them. They are notes on my daily life. They are short looks into my surroundings. I can take a moment to remember that when I draw. It stops me from my taking my life for granted because I stop and take a good look at what is making up my surroundings. In my notebook I draw showing the people, places and things that are all over the place but that I...

Yesterday and for the next few days we are expecting to get a steady rainfall. I decided to not let it stop me from taking a few photos of the nice roses that have exploded in my front lawn. I am new here and I wasn't expecting them. Being a man of taste I am enjoying the sight of them each and every morning. I can't help but share them with you on this blogsite, what with all the bad news out their I feel like sharing a little of the beauty that I see in my life here in Central Va. It had rained as I mentioned and that put a nice covering of rain upon those roses, I think it helps them look fresh and a little brigher in the dim light of a grey morning sunlight.

I'm home sick today, a stomach bug that came from eating some nasty c rabmeat that was a little foul, but it tasted good going down so who's complaining. Except for the way I felt when I awoke today hasn't been all that bad. I took off from work cuz I wasn't sure I could handle what demands the job has feeling the way I did this morning. So this gives me an opportunity to post some of the pen and inks that I've been dealing with as I allow my mind to wonder during the evening hours. I simply play with my notebook open, and pen in hand this is where I go. True I do make a conscious effort to control the images but I still allow for myself to wonder within the confines of the scene I am working on. It's very relaxing. Its' a good way to end the day before turning in. I also have a few drawings I did of young students in a coffee shop nearby the U.Va. in Charlottesville, Va. Some of these guys are with 'dates' but never look up and sp...

The air, sunlight, breeze and temperature were all in line for a wonderfully picture perfect day outside my home. The Miller School plein air invitational was up for the taking. I packed up and headed out for a scone and coffee before going to the backlot of the school's property, I had been to this place in the past fall of 2012 so I knew what I was facing. I had an idea of just where I wanted to go and how I wanted to attack the subject on canvas. The big question was whether my car would be able to handle navigating the pasture. So unperturbed by the thoughts of my car bottoming out in crossing the fenceline of the back property I packed up and made my way up through familiar roads. Although narrow I knew the way. I faced the open pasturea and successfully arrived at my set up spot. I got out my supplies and canvas and got right to work about nine thirty in the morning with the sun blazing over my left shoulder. A fellow artist, a french native who had taught lang...

I try to keep my hand in the arts in as much as I try to do something artistic everyday, everyday something somehow must nourish my calling to be what I am: "an artist" so this is my attempt at quieting that need. It was done a few days ago in the evening sitting in my armchair dwelling on nothing in particular...but yet dwelling on what I enjoy which is the unknown relationships the characters I draw have with one another. I find out things about my life this way, its sort of a journey of self discovery when I pick up a pen and put it to the paper before me.

What the nice surrounding land does for a person often goes unmentioned but when one paints one can show others the beauty and enjoyment one feels for the surrounding landscape. All that said (in poetic terms I suppose) how does a person portray it to others is the question for an artist. I've decided to just go out and find spots that bring up my wonderment of the raw unique power of nothing more than trees and what man has done to live among them. Here is a painting of a simple road but to see how this road bends and twist to lay upon the land is stunning to me. It's almost like a carnival ride in it's scope of bending to the landscape. True I think I must have exaggerated it some but I've gone back to this place and I must say that if it is exaggerated it isn't done so by much. Here is where I can enjoy the flow of my paint. When the territory lends itself to depicting features unique unto this place such as a fingerprint lends itself only to that...