Landscape of Virginia

This is the painting I worked up three weekends ago on Oct 19th and 20th of this year. I came from an opening of the properties of the Miller School to anyone who might wish to paint them and their views. I went up on a Saturday morning where the lite breakfast was provided and registration took place then off I went to the back fields of the school to paint. The painting took most of the late morning and the early afternoon until about four pm before I called it a day with my painting about three fourths done. It showed promise but I knew the next day would bring about a different look to it since the sun was no doubt be different. The first days efforts came about on an overcast day with a grey luminescent day with all the colors on the land being dull and rather dark. I knew the next day the sky would be clear and the colors much different. I wasn't disappointed. The next day I worked out the image of the barn and the open fields nearer to me and I left the mount...

Working out in the back fields of the Crozet private school called "The Miller School" was just right today, the weather was right, the clarity of the sky was good and it was a beautiful view from it. I set up on Saturday and painted for a few hours without reaching an ending point, but then I came back the day after. The work went well today and within a couple of hours I had a finished painting. The work ended up being a nice painting but the way I set it up wasn't so good, due to the design I used putting the barn in the lower corner. The barn sinks off the bottom edge pulling the viewers eye down and off the canvas surface. With the barn being such a highlight of the painting it can't be avoided so it's a sticky placement that makes this painting fail. I worked hard and well on it but I aught to have stopped in the very beginning and placed the drawing of the barn exactly right. I should have taken a better look at just where that barn is on the ...

My Opening at the Rockfish Valley Community Arts Center was good for me and I was complimented on the quality of my art on its walls so it was a success. I had about twenty dedicated fans that made the trek in a wet rainy cold and dark evening to the Opening. I had ruffly twenty one paintings on it's walls. They were all very large paintings and the venue was just right for those sized paintings. I would have photos but I felt I was their to enjoy myself and not to record it with a camera around my neck. A friend who was working for the local paper came by late and took a few snaps that might appear on Monday I think he said but I was very happy with speaking to him and the many other friends who showed up. They told me my jaw aught to be very tired when the event was over. It wasn't. I could have greeted many more fans. I am more than happy to say there were many who I came that I was able to invite from casual meetings over the previous few weeks. It was ...

A gang symbol this isn't...it's a new item I saw shown at the NA world convention and I liked it. It sort of puts NA into a human perspective with the use of human hands creating the square within the circle which is our geometric symbol. Only this can be done by anyone in any situation as a symbol for our Recovery from our addiction to drugs. And I have been wondering how I can pay a proper tribute to NA for all that it's done for me and to do so with my images and artwork. It's a real challenge because one (an artist) can't use the NA square within a circle because its got a copywrite on it and one can't put an image of any recognizable person in because of our anonymity so it's tough. But here one can put people in it without giving away just who they are with a set of hands and so far this symbol of thumbs meeting the pinky finger are not copywrited I believe...at least so far they aren't, but wait until some lawyers get into the mix..so here...

I have done much to keep my iron in the fire of art. I try my best to do something artistic at least once a day, whether its a drawing or painting or simply marketing my work but something to keep me in the game, something to keep me wet and surrounded by my love of the craft. This drawing is one way I keep at it. It's a simple study. A simple line drawing but in doing it I am keeping my hand-eye coordination together and sharp. Some crazy people think I have a camera in my head or that I have a measuring ruler in my head, can you believe the crazy things people who are suppose to be educated ...can you believe what they think is going on? Quite a wild ride to be sure, but I'm still on that bronco after all these years, I'm in it till the end no matter what. This piece is simply a study of looking at the image, drawing that image while looking at it and not looking at the paper I am drawing on. But do people believe that, I don't think there degree is worth ve...

Attending the World Convention was an interesting study in character, character expressed by our various and unique facial structure as it shows up in our looks. I sat down in a hallway chair for a while and took out my drawing book then got to work. As people passed a few took the time to sit across the hallway in a comfortable bench. And other simply stood with friends and conversed for a short time, as they took these rests I got to work. Here I collected a good number of character studies of these guys and gals during there stays in the hallway. I spent the good part of an hour or so working on these drawings. I don't feel it compromises these guys anonymity because my replication of an exact likeness just can't be trusted so there ya go. My artistic license is at work in my art workbook, my pen does it all and does it well enough to be convincing that maybe just maybe you might have seen a guy or gal who looks just like one of these people in my drawings, well ...

I was gifted with a ticket on the train and also a way into the 35th World Convention of NA held in downtown Philadelphia this past weekend. What a blowout it was, some of the very best of speakers also with some of the best commonsense shared on the world wide stage. There were people from all over the world on stage sharing with we who we Blessed enough to be in a the audience. People from Russia: a hundred visiting young men and women anxious to bring back literature so they could free there friends from addiction and start NA in mother Russia. People from Africa sharing on Skype to 18,000 addicts in the audience. Wow! I'm glad I can say I too am in Recovery today, Just for Today!