Landscape of Virginia

While driving on my routine trip into the city, I saw a home in Esmont that was half open, half of it was exposed to the elements. I was taken. I've been interested in showing the "in's' and out's" of country homes. Well there is was sitting among other homes like it. The difference being it was half gutted and open sided to view. I immediately wanted to take a photo and paint it, but I thought better of it and just let it simmer. About a month later I was snapping photos in its backyard. It was an enjoyable subject to paint.

There is a road I often take to get to the Lake Monticello area where my doctor has his office, and along the way is this store. Its "Kidd's Store", a spot along the way in the middle of nowhere its sits quietly. I stopped and took a look inside. There I found it stocked with a few typical snack items and a small counter that served small sandwiches and other items. There is one person behind the counter and that's it. No gas pumps but it did have an air machine as you can see in the painting. It might not have been much but it was something, and the only stop for miles around, so it was a welcome storefront. People know of it around here, it even has its name on the local TV station's weather map, so its got to be somewhat well known.

I started out by painting in this style now dubbed 'toonistic art' or 'lowbrow art' either way it was a way I began painting. It was formed after being brought up reading the 'funnies' every Sunday morning after Church on the floor of our living room. With the large paper spread out across the rug I slowly engulfed the funny papers one artists work at a time. To me they were a wonderful feat of both ideas and drawing and coloration of those caricature drawings. It was my weekly dose of art that came right to our house. Wonderful! When I began working in oils at the Academy this was the style I wanted to emulate and otherwise saw as a valid artform. My teachers were divided on this issue I later found out. Whether or not it was an accepted form of art, they later gave me an Honorable Mention Cresson Award.

So I reworked that last subject which was that old country barn off of Rt. 6 and I got a completely different painting out of it. I took a head on view of it and worked with the perspective of the receding post holding up the right side of it. That gave me time to work on the sunlight upon the post holding the roof up. I began doing those posts with a simple brown and bear canvas cartoon. When I returned to that area I decided to make a color change to include a deep dark red mixed with some burnt umber which contrasted well with my Hansa Yellow w Flake White and light ocher sunlight side of those posts. It made for a welcoming effect but there was one troublesome moment of reality. That was how the right side of the painting was so warm with all that effect from the yellow and reds that the left side was very cold. It was something that I saw as a feature the viewer would have to forgive, I had the thought that it might be forgiven as simply the cha...

This is an oil of a barn in Lousia County. Much like the others its located on the side of Rt 6 as your leaving Scottsville, Va.

My current idea is to paint those structures that were in place during the earlier millennia for Virginians' to carry on within its walls. Its places like barns for agricultural purposes and housing livestock are those I have targeted to paint. Those barns and old homes have been weathered and many are nearing collapse. I am trying to record them before they are gone into the history of the land. This particular one was sitting by the side of the Rt 6 road. It was still in fairly good condition yet it did have some holds in it walls. Many of those old barns aren't being used anymore, and I honestly don't know why other than that they could fall apart on whatever is housed inside them. The wood in them is rather unique and colorful in an earthy way. I find that part of them appealing to paint.

This painting is one in which I transposed my eyes vision onto the canvas. I saw this barn on the other side of the highway from "Kidds Store". I was at this spot to get a photo of Kidd's Store yet I saw this barn on the other side and saw that it too was an interesting composition that I could put on a canvas and perhaps, just perhaps it too could look good as a painting. So I snapped a photo of it and took off for home. I took it as a barn that I could interpret into something more than just another barn painting. I changed the coloring of the tin roof and the colors of its sides to become what it is. It is unique. It is not what one sees if you were standing their looking at it. But yet it is (at the same time recognizable as itself) It is more than what sits their, yet it is what sits in the field before you on Rt 6 just east of Scottsville.