Landscape of Virginia

The idea of doing the same object over and over again was something that our art profs had us do during our first years as art students. As you can tell (if you've been following this blog of mine) this is a redone imagery of a street scene in Charlottesville's dinning scene, the Blue Moon Cafe has appeared on my canvases before. The restaurant is one small spot that holds a very dear place in our community of cityfolk. Its gone through its changes, and now they are talking about putting a ten store building crowded around it. What next, put it under glass(?) and sell tickets to the oddity of quaint old haunts of the hippie era(?)a...well this is my painting of the new style of the Blue Moon. It had had a wooden slate roof but all that has changed. I just paint it as I see it. Its a larger painting than my first work similar to this one. This one is about four inches higher and maybe a few inches wider, which gave me more room to move and expand on what I could inc...

A friend whom I don't frequent much time with anymore, not because I don't want to we just don't cross paths like we use to living in the same neighborhood and all....well anyway on with the story with this painting; He saw this scene way up in Maine (God only knows what he was living up their for, a girl I suppose..well) and he took out his camera and photographed it thinking that it reminded him of "JT's People" as they have often been called by people who knew how I use to paint these kind of overweight folks almost all the time. Well enough for the run-on sentences, I just had to get it out...this painting was the result of that photograph coming into my hands. I let it sit for over two years thinking I didn't really want to paint it. It didn't catch my interest until this guy sent word back to me that he'd like me to at least try and draw it, these were my people afterall. So I did. Then I found a way for him to get a look at it and I h...

I am slowly building up a collection of important structures in Charlottesville, afterall I lived in that city for 34 yrs without leaving it very often so I think it fits to remember it in oils. This painting is a little local market on a very busy wide avenue near but not on a downtown street. The fella in the window is a character who is their whenever the door is open and he is the owner, proprietor of the Market. Its nothing fancy mind you however he does have the essentials on hand. He runs a clean Market, not corncob pipes for sale either over or under the counter. Its been handy for me to run in with our students on a hot day and have a soda or waterbottle cold and frosty. The actual image of him in the window doesn't do him justice due to the fact that I painted him to be such a small figure, he doesn't really stand quite like that, but he does stand in the window on many a day and simply peer out watching whatever happens to be passing by. Lots of people and ...

I'm currently working on an oil but I had time to review older pen and inks last night here. My interest was piqued by one of an "Wooden Ship" that I began work on over a year ago. I wanted to add some interesting details in order to bring it to life it didn't seem done, there was something that said "yet undone" Some drawings lye about for a good amount of time and they simply down draw much interest in oneself to look at them. The reason can sometimes be that they aren't finished yet and they ought to be put back on the drawing board. I did that with this one of a 'Wooden Ship' and certainly what I did afterwards was worth it in my humble opinion. What you see is the final work, before this endpoint it lacked something one just can't put into words, but it was something important..not everything is describable in words, sometimes we just know. Hope you like it.

The iconic dinner on West Main in Charlottesville has got to be "Mel's Cafe". Its been their since the 1970's or perhaps it predates that time I haven't checked but it is an excellent 'pit stop' on a walk from the University to downtown. I needed to include the place in my collection of 'known spots' true to Charlottesville's historical significant buildings. The building has that retro nineteen-seventies look to it with the wide expanse of glass and the winged roof atypical of that era. I enjoyed painting it although the darkness created by his smoked glass on most of the windows is something I neglected to include in my rendition of 'Mel's'. I felt that the attention to the images he includes on his walls such as framed photos and other framed items too small to make out their origins or type were objects of interest for me as I rendered this painting in oils. Its truly a unique place, and the only one of its kind in thi...

There is a spot in town where I was a frequent flyer at and that spot is aptly named the "Lucky 7". I don't know the story behind that name and I know it as the one spot in the downtown area that has some truly seedy and unique characters behind the counter at all times of the day (and especially)at night. I often arrived with a thirst of an elephant in need of some liquid enjoyment. I went their due to the availability of my favorite drink at a lower price than the norm of course (this was in what's called in the vernacular "the liquid drug") and they had it....lots of it. And I believe if one drank and one lived in downtown Charlottesville or Belmont there would be a chance that at one time or another that one would arrive at the doorway of the "Lucky 7" looking for this 'item of need'. But since getting and staying off drugs I haven't had so much of a need to visit them, thus the recall of the place is sort of a novel thing...

Greetings, I usually don't post newsy stuff but this is different; today I finalized the agreement to show up to twenty paintings at the University of Virginia Mc Intire School of Commerce in Aug-Dec 2017. I will be working towards this goal in the couple of summers and during the coming schoolyear to come in the hopes of working it into a 'good exhibit' which people from all walks of life can find some enjoyment in viewing it on the hallway walls. It's on the 'lawn' or 'grounds' (which is localspeak for campus) of the University so don't tell em that I use to drink with my 'city rat' friends under the pine trees until the U.Va. security would chase us away. I learned to stand my ground and not run from my responsibility. So not all was lost. My cat will be overseeing all my efforts towards the show at Mc Intire...so it will work out just fine.