Landscape of Virginia

Sometimes I just like taking an image that one sees only once in a long time, like this one selected for view on this page. Seen from my home, the light hit those clouds at about the best possible angle and moment to my taste. Its been a long time indeed since something as beautiful as that has happened here in my community. I felt God's artistic hand was being shown and His anonymity was being shown as the Great Artist that He is.

Murry's use to be a wholesale meats outlet on E. Market Street in Charlottesville,Va. but they went out of business back in the nineteen eighties but there brick painted sign is still standing firm. How about the power of paint for ya? Its been their quite a few years past its' business's demise. I use to walk by it all the time, and I have to admit I knew one of these days I would have to paint it. Its so iconic for that part of the town of Charlottesville, and so here is my rendering of it. I know, I feel I could have done it so much differently, of course I mean I could and should have done it in so much of a better way than the way it turned out. We're (we artist) so bad about criticizing our own work, and I am no different than anyone else with this defect. But here is my entire feeling for that stretch of sidewalk viewing, its beyond just painting the Murry's building. Its about a lot more than just that, there are many memories locked away in the b...

I suppose a lot of people are going to be heading out for their family vacation, if they already haven't done so, well I came up with a memory of the time I was across this land at 'Half-Dome' in Yosemite Monument State Park. I flashed on it, so I did a quick character drawing of some men, a family of them taking in the view. There mostly saying ,"No you go, I'll wait here"

I've been thinking again in ink. I've got an idea of what I want to do next and I am playing around with it in an ink and paper motif. I might do this and perhaps not, because I wonder,"Who afterall wants to see these buildings in oil afterall?" But I enjoy them and have done them before in watercolor which is a big help due to having a prior knowledge of what lye ahead.

A coffee shop is usually a spot where one can find the pulse of the city. It is that way with this coffee shop "Greenberry's" that I have painted. It has been in existence a very long time. Its a simple spot, one that serves a few pastries and a number of coffees' as any coffee shop would. It is also where many of the University's students hang their hats. And many of my own friends have as well over the many years. I wanted to remember it with some paint and doing so it took some painstaking time and attention to detail in order to make it 'right with my sight'. I think I got it even with some of the flaws in color not being an exact match to those of the shopping center's paneling on its buildings. I hope you can get over that issue for the sake of showing what one of this town's meeting places appears as in the city scenery of Barracks Road. This is a small canvas, however it is a wide or long canvas. I used mostly sun thicke...

My friends and I were avid TV watchers back in the day. At one time we set up the couch and portable TV out on the porch and we watched from that vantage point during the hot city afternoons. Many people would pass by and we would pause and strike up a conversation with them and sometimes they would come up off the city sidewalk and join us. Other times they would simply hold a brief deeply felt communicative moment with us and walk on. It was a memorable occasion none the less and I really enjoyed it. That all went on for a good while until the landlord got wind of it and made us move back inside the townhouse turned apartment-house. I did this drawing simply by my memory as best I could remember what our set up looked like from that townhouse porch in the West Philly part of the city.

I used to live in Belmont and the iconic spot when I first moved to Lennard Street I had to walk by or bike right by the local convenience store called the Belmont Market almost everyday. It is in the heart of that small district of Charlottesville but it has much deeper ties to those who grew up in C'ville (as its affectionately known)....we who have spent time traversing those streets have all stopped into 'The Belmont Market' at one time or another. The building has the look of one that might collapse right around you if you spent too much time their, but it never has. Serving the public of C'ville for many many years the Market has gone through a few different hands of ownership. Right now the Vorah family owns it. I know because their son was a student at our school just a few years ago and it was then that I would check up on him sitting in his father's store stocking its shelves with assorted items. They are a wholesome new age American immigrants...