Sunset, Wednesday, 20 May 2009

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

Tonight’s big ‘empty’ sunset with ‘nothing’ in it – the kind of sunset no one would or should or does paint – reminded me, later, that “time has no beginnings and history has no bounds.”

I have this on no less an authority than Gordon Lightfoot in “Canadian Railroad Trilogy.” I’m not a folkie – the next thing out of my iChing was “My Brain Is Hangin’ Upside Down [Bonzo Goes to Bitburg]” – but that GL item is one of the most thrillingly boundary-bending songs ever written. (Get the less orchestrated studio version, 6:22, if you can’t obtain the live track.) The boundaries I mean trace territories of music, lyrics, history and commentary.

Today I called Flint the foxhound a scoundrel. Then thought better of it. He’s a houndrel.

Sunset, Tuesday, 19 May 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on linen, 16 x 20.It took waiting half an hour past “sunset” to find out what it was going to do, but the deepening sky gave me the chance to use a mixture of three blues I call – you won’t believe how clever this is – “beautiful blue.” That’s the middle tone between the greenish horizon and the descending gray violet.

This has almost nothing to do with tonight’s painting, but there’s a well-known adage among painters, “When in doubt, add white.”

I offer, “When in doubt, mess it up.”

Sunset, Monday, 18 May 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on linen, 16 x 20.Tonight I’ve posted appreciation pages for my three – count ’em, three! – students, Lakshmi, Mohan, and Willa.

Sunset, Sunday, 17 May 2009

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

Sunset, Saturday, 16 May 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.A line of thunderstorms arrived at sunset, and the rain hit just afterward. Laura was taking photos; I’ve posted one – not nearly her best shot of the night, but the one closest to what I was seeing, here.

Looking at the Sunset (Part 2)

Photo: Laura Owen Sutherland

This is the sunset from the 16th of May, 2009, one of the shots Laura took as a line of storms came through, and more or less the part of the sky I was painting.