Landscape of Virginia

     The northern most state during the southern Civil War was Virginia, and we lost.   Here in Central Virginia some of the homes built after that time are mostly but not all leveled to the ground.   Some remain but in tattered shape.   Many not at all.   Those homes built to replace those that had fallen were built with poorly made  of construction material.   Now many of those are falling apart too.    I've seen very many on my drives around the County I live in and the Counties nearby be homes that are in that condition.   The condition where they don't seem too long before crumbling into dust.         Its clear that the South suffered a defeat and unlike our foreign enemies that we defeat then rebuild there country after the conflict ends the South never has been helped with aid in such as manner that has been given to those foreign countries like Post WWI Germany, pos...

    The Country in Virginia has spot where the folks decided to place a gas station alongside a road.    Its there that they serviced those that lived nearby, now defunkcd they remain crumbling along the roadside.   Once popular as service stations they have an iconic look to them.   That is there look is unique to the fact that they all have a portico reaching outward from them where the gas pumps stood.   Here in this painting I pictured those features in this station declining days.   One can sense it must have been the scene of many a car fueling under its roof.   The wood is rotted.   The pumps have been removed.    The oil tanks well who knows if they are gone or not,  no way to tell.   The geometric wooden structure is still in tack,  for how long no on knows but for now it remained long enough for me to paint it. 

 Here is my version of Walton's Mountain with Earl Hamner's country home before it.   Its small painting, only ten inches square.   With the tacks holding the canvas and the popular trim framing, ten inches and....  Its an oil painting done on location on Rt 6 in Nelson County, Va.    

This barn was rusting out from the top down, so it was very colorful to paint. My canvas called out to have some fun with it, so I did: the result is a small painting that changes tone from one side to the other.   True I did have trouble photographing it but still you can still see the warm browns and deep black/blues on the right side transversing over to cold white/greens and blacks on the other side...way weird eh!

I've had troubles getting the lowdown view of this isolated country store w gas and sandwiches to go, the first two paintings were just down the tubes as far as visual interest. This one is better. I took in the outter view of cushion value of distancing around the store itself, and I think I won with a better feel to this scene. The station is buffeted by some space around it and distance too. Its a little better to view when there is some breathing room around it and not jammed into a small canvas space. I like the cars a little better in this one as well as leaving some visual detect-ability of the painting methods I used in creating this version of "Kidd's Store (#3)". Hope your entertained with its intensity and spacial relief.

This is from a barn on Route 6 in Louisa County Virginia, its another oil using Stand oil as a medium. The stand oil is much thicker than regular linseed oil, much like the thickness of honey. It is linseed oil only the liquid has been taken out and what remains is a nice oil to paint with, it has a much better shine and luster once its used on the canvas w paints. The barn painted here is one old barn. I didn't get to talk to anyone about its history but one can notice its age when looking at the photo of it. Its been thrown together from older slates of wood, most likely from another free standing barn just reused on this one. It was repainted but one can see that some of the paint must have just flaked off. Its kind of a 'specked egg' arrangement but it keeps the outdoors "out" and the indoors "in"....with country living its the function that's important not the appearance.

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.