Landscape of Virginia

Looking at a painting for a year or so one can see that so much more could be done with it. In this vein, I took a brush and palette up to work on "Cloven Sycamores" which had been sitting in a blind alley (or my storage room for artwork) for some time. I began this one in my bedroom just looking out over the river below (it's not the James but the Rockfish River which does flow into the James River)me as I look out from the back of my house. A good friend said that I needed to do a painting of those two trees. I said "No way man!!" I felt it would be just too big of an object to fit into any canvas of mine. Then a year when by n I was simply pulled into that view when I was just gazing on afternoon upon that pair. I began it in 2013. I had the drop cloth bought simply for the reason of protecting the bedroom carpet from my easel's drippings. I set up on a sunny day and when to work. The start didn't take long I think in five hours I had...

With life giving us the need to have a job that pays I seldom have the time during the school year to paint what I want to paint. Not to be redundant but one must be ready for what time one has to actually change into ones painting clothes and get out their and work on a canvas. To be ready I try to make some canvases rather large canvases before I find the time comes in which I can go on out and create. Doing this requires some time spent in my studio where I store my work making the canvases from stretchers and raw cotton duck and gesso. This takes three coats of gesso (gesso is a combination of rabbit skin glue and titanium white paint which is non-toxic) to make the canvas oil paint ready. Without this stuff the paint would soon rot the cotton duck that canvas is made of, so we coat it with gesso first before applying paint to the surface. It takes the good part of an afternoon to make a canvas, but once its done the actual painting on it can wait for a very long time....

The winter season isn't known as the best season to get outside and make some art but well I went out anyway last week. I traveled down to a small town on the James River known as Scottsville. Its the home of an old riverboat station where the traders of commerce would travel back and forth down the James to Richmond to do business. The river still runs and the town is still a working community although it is doing its best to attract new business by reinventing itself. I went down their to paint last summer and it was a nice experience especially since I finished five or six good canvases working on that towns streets. I went back with canvas on break from the cold weather, it was in the forties or low fifties while I was out in a parking spot with my canvas. I had to deal with a low breeze though and I did so by putting rigging on the upper corners of my canvas. I literally tied the canvas to the Julliard easel with wire. It worked too. I spent the day painting ...

This painting is of the school where I work on the weekdays. It features a program to help special need students to move smoothly from the public school atmosphere into the work a day world we live in. It is an oil painting, and it is done from the perspective from where I stand directing the buses and cars in and out of our parking lot of Post High. Post High is part of Albemarle High School although it is located a few miles away from that high school. As an artist I am not unlike a lot of authors in that I am reflecting on my past and what I know well. I know this scene well because I stand their so much every morning and every evening as the school closes. In as much that I see it so much I have a good recall of it. I did this painting from my home miles away. I used my memory to pickout the content and details of the painting. The students who study here are 18 to 22 years old and I am showing them streaming out of the building at the end of the day. Some will s...

My drawing dealing with the carnival of life.

Life can be a carnival sometimes...the people we see sometime seem to come right out of a circus tent on their way to the concession stand getting some ice cream between acts. Such as scene seems to play out whenever I am at the grocery store heading in for my weekly purchase of food items. I don't ask questions, I don't bother to stop someone and ask them "...and what country are you from?" or "why do you look like someone who I wouldn't ever see anywhere else?" It's a real unique group I run into at the doorway at my local groceryshop and I don't know why. Maybe its simply a sign of being in a global village and I'm just starting to catch on to that fact. I am welcoming though, the broader and varied the population the more diverse our knowledge and skill-level is as a nation and people. Ok I'll get off my bandbox..so there you have it...Thanksgiving is tomorrow and I'm happy for it all...all of all is good with me!

Its a wonderful thing that we have such a variety of people at the local grocery store when I am shopping there in the evening. It's a reflection that with so many new countries bringing there people to our shores our nation is benefiting and changing because of it. I see so many different nationalities represented simply at the local grocerstore when I go to buy my weekly foods. I feel I am missing out on this unique experience because I don't have the nerve to stop one or two of these guys and ask them "where are you from?" or "...do you find this kind of store meets your needs?" I guess I don't do that simply from not wanting to be a pest or thought of as "...that weird guy who asks strangers questions" so I don't dare do so. But seeing how these folks are from all over the world kind of has me reflecting on our founder Thomas Jefferson who wanted to bring people from all over the world to his University for a global village and...