Landscape of Virginia

A new look at the sleepy little colonial port of Scottsville on the James is what I've been interested in this summer. I've take a few different approaches to it. My first was a small painting just discovering what was out their, then I painted a store front, then a particular store and now this week I was working on the group of downtown buildings in a 'streetscape' painting. The latest one turned out to be kind of a 'flat color study' where I really was looking at the geometery of those particular buildings on the downtown strip of little old Scottsville. I actually was rather far away from my subjects when I set up my paintbox and water. I could actually hardly see them. I guess I need a little more displine in my drawing so I get it all 'in' the painting itself..oh well..live and learn and live to come back another day and try it again. I did stop at one point and walk down the street to actually see what made up those doorways under th...

I took a friend to the University Hospital this morning because during his small endoscopy he had to go under for a while so I had to drive. They just don't let people behind the wheel after taking one of their 'cocktails' so I took him in this morning. It went just fine but while waiting in the Hospital lobby I took out my drawing book and found some subjects for my pen and inks. This one in particular was one I could put a lot of meaning into, a mother and daughter no doubt awaiting word from their loved one as to his fate or results. This was my thought on what I took to draw. Both lay together for a while, not very long but yet long enough for me to get them done in ink. I didn't ask them any questions nor do I think they knew what I was doing just across the hallway from them. To my knowledge they must have thought I was listening to the piano playing happening beside us but all the time I was focused on them and their absolute serenity in their pose. A...

Looking where I didn't want to go to paint I ended up working on a scene with the thought that "one who is a painter can make a good canvas out of anything" meaning to me that a good painter can perform well under any circumstances. So I went to Crozet, Va. and worked on a canvas that was to me a real chore. I set up behind a train station on the otherside of the tracks looking downward on a streetscene that had some buildings and a mountain scene behind it all. All this in a very small area of sight, one would unusually simply move on to some other view, but not me. I felt like seeing how well this idea that a good painter can make something look well despite the visual problems that lay within the context of the canvas. For me it was a labor of 'let's do it anyway no matter how I feel' and so it went for a few hours on a sunny day early in the week. The sun had come out and there was a short break in all the rain we've been subjected to so I cou...

The finished painting is always the very best and well worth the wait to see. This was done in three sessions on the street in the hot sun in Scottsville on the James River in southern Albemarle County this past week. The three sessions where about two and a half hours each, one lasting over three hours in it's time on the streetside. I decided simply to work only onsite. That strategy worked well. I only touched up a few miscues at home after the last session otherwise it was totally a work done 'plein air'. The building is a large one on the main corner of this river community. It was originally a drugstore but now it's been divided up into three smaller shops which vary depending on how business is and who can handle sales in an otherwise deserted town. While I was their I saw very few people walking on the city streets but the few that did seemed very interested in just what I was doing painting on the sidewalk. I talked to the few that bothered ...

I've been working in downtown Scottsville which is a city that was founding in the mid 1700's as a port on the James River. It has it's hayday back in the mid 1800's as a place where people could gather goods. This particular painting is done of a promimate building in this town, it stands tall on it's Main Street next to the James River Inn and across from the Exxon (which doesn't date back much at all) the artwork isn't finished but I thought I would show it anyway since I've worked on it for the past two days. I can say that I've been true to it since I haven't painted on it unless I was looking directly at the building in Scottsville. No touching up at home for me. It's a keeper though, and I plan to head back this coming Friday (in a couple of days) to see where it will take me then as far as developement towards completion.

The very active intersection of Rt 6 w Rt 20 was the subject of my interest today. I set up around noon and worked with a few breaks from the sun for four hours. I felt as if I had gott'n off to a bad start but as I worked on this canvas I saw where it developed rather nicely into an unorthodox painting composi tion but I felt it worked. It worked well and so I left it alone and kept developing it into the canvas you see. I began with the buildings setting too far down past the midpoint of the latitude. I simply kept going but I almost just rubbed it all out to begin again. As I was taught and are many art students, to not begin unless one is totally confident of a good start to there canvas. One cannot build well unless one has a good foundation upon with to set his or her building, and this canvas was questionable at best when I got started. What I did was simply try something questionable and see what I could do with it. I actually felt some sense of being upset ...

There are places both on the map and sort of forgotten about and off the map of frequent travelers. The town of Esmont is one such place, it's just off a main east/west highway in Central Virginia. It had it's hayday from what I've learned mostly during the time of the roaring Twenty's and such...I think most of these place benefited mostly from the mining going on in the nearby town of Schulyer. Now the mining is limited and the town of Esmont has but a few families living in it's homes. The most noteworthy building I found to be the old bank building which was nice deep red from the brick used in it's construction. It's the only brick building in the town that I could find, but it's a nice three story building with some nice features to it with the name "Esmont Bank" still built into it's brickwork above the main doorway. With the sun out and mild temps I headed over to the quite town. I set up and painted for about th...