Looking at the Sunset (Part 4)

Early this evening (Thursday, 28 May 2009), looking south across Baltimore harbor from Fells Point:

Pencil and Prismacolor crayon on paper, 6 x 8.I like gray (of course), but I thought it was funny that just about everything I was seeing, with the possible exception of the sailboat, could be considered a shade of ‘gray’.

The sunset that I’ll be posting will be a composite of (gray) skies I watched as we drove to dinner for Laura’s birthday, in Hampden.

Sunset, Thursday, 28 May 2009

Hampden, Jones Falls Expressway, Baltimore, Md. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.This was on the way to Laura’s birthday dinner at the fabulous Woodberry Kitchen. (I had, among other things, a wonderful Stinging Nettle Soup.) This view is off a curve on the Jones Falls Expressway, one of my all-time favorite driving roads, even though it’s an interstate. It’s got plenty of billboards ... 

A little sketch and a note from earlier on this day can be found here.

Looking at the Sunset (Part 3)

From Baltimore harbor, Wednesday, 27 May 2009.

Baltimore. Pigment liner pen in Moleskine notebook.My sketches for sunset paintings are often in a sort of code based on years of painting the sky. This was about 30 minutes before sunset. The word ‘streak’ appears crossed out but is actually the word written over the lines, to remind me that there was a streak of light there.

Baltimore. Pencil on landscape notebook.There would be a third sketch five minutes later just concentrating on changes that took place with the sunset. Here I was working from a different place on the dock and getting more of what would be the actual sunset sky. When I do the oil painting at home on the 31st (see the post from yesterday), the result will depend as much on an overall impression and feeling as on all my notes, and may or may not pay attention to the city skyline.

Yours truly.

Update on Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 09:58AM by BVD

Overheard last night on the street [one dog owner to the other]:

”Oh, she’s a mix of rotweiler and Baltimore alley hound.”

Sunset, Wednesday, 27 May 2009

Fells Point, Baltimore, Md. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.This sunset corresponds to the entry “Looking at the Sunset (Part 3).”

Sunset, Tuesday, 26 May 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.For the first time in my blogging life I’ll be traveling, tomorrow through Saturday, and decided that, at least for this first trip, hauling everything – easel, paint, palette, rags, dropcloth AND camera, tripod, lights, etc., etc. – and painting, shooting and posting from a hotel room and somehow doing this without putting unsolicited clouds and sunlight on the nice wallpaper – is probably a bit much. So I will be writing here – albeit somewhat more erratically, as we’re also celebrating Laura’s birthday – and, if possible, posting whatever photos of sketches or other artifacts of the trip I can rustle up to stand in for the paintings until they finally go up on Sunday the 31st. Look for sunsets from [name withheld because Laura doesn’t know].

Depending on where you live, calling a dip in the temperature from the 80s to the upper 50s a touch of  ‘winter’ may seem laughable, but, as you may know, I’ve been on the lookout for something we might call blackberry winter. We have something like it, even if it’s only been since around noon and it’ll probably be gone tomorrow. When the rain and wind blow through the windows you’d been opening for relief from the heat and you feel like starting a little fire in the woodstove, that’s good enough for me.

But I was noticing yesterday, when I was out with Flint, that half of the blackberry blossoms have fallen off and given way to the developing green berries. I need to come up with whatever blooms right after. So I give you the false winter of the wild rose.

Sunset, Monday, 25 May 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.