Landscape of Virginia

    This piece of land has more to be explored from what I have been able to discern from the local neighbors.   I've only photographed what I can see from Arrington Road nearby where the Locken Music Festival is held in the summer.   There are three buildings I have been able to study so far with more that are out of sight.   I am interested due to the age of some of these abandoned farm buildings.   I was told that this one is a 'chicken house' for the Holland farm.   Its not in operation anymore but it must have held a good number of the foul in its heyday.   This is an oil.  I use a 30/30/30 medium with sunthickened linseed oil going by the name Stand oil.   Its small, only 14 inches by 26 inches in size with a popular wood lattice frame slapped on it.  

  You know how kids are. you mention an abandoned house on a back country road and immediately its named "the Ghosthouse" and its that way with this particular house on this back road in Albemarle County.  Its on a shortcut road just off of Plank Rd, just after the twisty curves on the left.   Sure I know still you'll never find it but its there.   Its a typical Victorian styled house but its been boarded up and left in the field for quite some time, left to grow cobwebs and moss.   Its got three other brown rotted wood houses right next to it.   They sit with all the stories of life lived within its walls evaporated from within and wind blown from without them.   They have some beauty not yet given up to time.

      The grounds keepers house on John Hollands farmland is one most interesting home.   It seemed to me to a home, one that seemed to be the earliest structure made on this property.   Granted its one that is small but it seemed to have that feel of a starting spot for whomever began living on that land.   Its a small structure and one where a man and wife might fit in with a small place to live and cook what with it having two chimneys and footprint big enough to fit two people in for just living and building additional buildings on later.      The painting came slowly.   Its one in which I worked the paint well after the application of oils and laid down the ground colors in the beginning to get the image drawn and set up the correct proportions and perspective of the brush drawing image.   The dark colors added when drawing in the image in with the loaded brush.  At this point in my paint...

    I was painting this house plein air and a man walked up behind me and began to speak: "Do you know anything about the house your painting?"   Well, I didn't.   It turns out that this house is named "the Langston home" and it was the spot where the Union Army w General T. Sherman set up his headquarters while staying in Central Virginia during the Civil War in 1863 (or so)....the Army set up its tents in the land surrounding this home in Faber, Va.   The house is still in the same family and they own most all of the land that I rendered in this painting.   There property goes way back into the mountains behind the home, and up to the west and east of it as well.   Chuck (the man who came up to chat with me as I painted) was very talkative n explained most everything anyone would care to ask about that place.  I just kept painting.  It is located just south of Irish Road or Rt 6 in Nelson County, Va.

     This house is found on a twisty road not used by many people, its one of a few in the woods.   Most abandoned homes are around it and by the looks of it this home too is without any current residents.   It can give most people the 'willies' or the' shakes' just to look at it due to its poor condition.  It was interesting to me as a serious house to study.   I did take a few liberties with the color of the wood and the condition of the windows.   I made it look in better shape than it actually is in.  

  Bringing new thoughts in my sketchbook into the sight of my eyes is often fun and a refreshing change from the tedious palette and brushwork I do everyday.    This is one of my fun sketches that I've done with the feel of our election process.

     On the back roads between Shipman and Arrington (where a nice rock festival takes place) there is a group of farm buildings that stand abandoned with grasses growing among them.    This barn is one of those buildings.   It stands atop a hill with a slope of a grassy plane which makes it a dominate scene.   Its really quite becoming and the unique style of the building creates a really nice balanced image.   So I painted it after photographing it from the side of the highway.