Sunset, Friday, 15 May 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on linen, 16 x 20.The illusion was that the clouds stretched left to right, pulled south to north in front of us, when in fact they wrapped completely around us, front to back, over, under, so that we lived in a blue-and-white silken ball of spun cloud.

Sunset, Thursday, 14 May 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.A soft muted evening, still in the 70s, the sky thinking about gathering up some rain. A skinny beautifully orange fox had come halfway through the yard when I stepped outside – it immediately turned and long-tailed it back into the fields. Pi, our youngest and smallest cat, was sitting on the outside bench, 15 yards from where the fox had been, an animated balloon above her head displaying a big bold exclamation point and, I thought, a question mark to go with it. Luckily, Stokey, 17 years old, was inside and not on hand to battle for his turf – as he did three years ago in an epic struggle that I witnessed and will eventually have to tell you about in all its remarkable detail. Upstairs, our pound-rescued foxhound peacefully slumbered.

Sunset, Wednesday, 13 May 2009

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

It occurred to me right after last night’s post that one of the perils of describing the same sunset one is painting is that it invites comments like, “Loved the description, dude – too bad I didn’t see any of that in the painting!”

To me, sunset as described, sunset as painted, and sunset as I saw it might as well be three different sunsets. So I try not to worry too much if the painting  doesn’t equal the writing, or vice-versa.

In fact, last night I imagined some little person (evidently a distant cousin of Toulouse-Lautrec) marching into the back yard, planting an easel, laying down a field of red violet across her canvas, and then one great big brushmark of yellow, and outperforming everything and everyone.

If she ever comes back here again, I may have to ask her to leave.

Sunset, Tuesday, 12 May 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.The first sunset of the night was intensely bright gold in the center and dirty brown-mauve to the sides, below a stifled screened-off blue and a high pale white cloud. This was just after 8:00.

Then the gold went coppery and not as bright, but with contrail-like rips of a white brighter than white by virtue of a smoky undershade – light focused through trails of smoke. And the blue stayed flat. Now it was almost 8:15, technically past sunset.

The yellow and violet tones then merged into something like red gold, the metal, the streaks dimmed, and the blue started to breathe.

The woods got tired of waiting and gave up most of their color to silhouette; the mountains just got brighter, a scrim of radiant cobalt.

I went upstairs to paint, knowing I would have to keep looking out the window for some late spectacular phase, as very often happens. But not tonight.

Sunset, Monday, 11 May 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.If you paint sunsets, and I guess particularly if you paint a lot of them – O.K., I mean, especially if you paint every single last one of them and need to clean your brushes and scrub your hands before you can even touch the camera and begin the process of posting – there is often a temptation to cheat just a little, as in, “Oh, c’mon, the sky’s obviously not going to change in the next 15 minutes, maybe I can paint now and not wait ... ” 

And it seems that at least every other night for the last couple of weeks, if I had done that, I would have missed some completely unexpected phenomenon that didn’t even appear possible until the very last moment – determined gray skies, usually, that decided to burn themselves in a bright flame before they left.

Tonight, again, I thought the same thing – a cloud cover had come along and I thought, “What you see is what you’re gonna get.”

Wrong again! – except this time, the change was in the opposite direction. Out of the moderate cover came an arc of cloud that made me go check and see if “wall of doom” was in the forecast.

Instead of a predicted wall of doom, we had “a slight chance of showers.” Radar did show a wall of something, and I turned the usual view a little farther north to get more of it.

*    *    *    *

The high temperature dropped 20 degrees today, and when I was out with Flint I saw the blackberry blossoms were about halfway out. I was tempted to call today blackberry winter, but I’m going to hold out for a longer, more dramatic cool snap, a true ‘spell’ of weather, preferably when most of the blossoms are out.

The wild blueberries are all in bloom, though, so I’ll designate today a touch of huckleberry autumn.

Sunset, Sunday, 10 May 2009

William Van Doren, Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.