Sunset, Saturday, 9 May 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.I might be even more tempted to go on a sort of abstract expressionist bender and paint the crazy ‘sunsets’ in my head if it were not for the fact that the sunset again and again proves to be a crazy abstract expressionist itself.

Sunset, Friday, 8 May 2009

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

Sunset, Thursday, 7 May 2009

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

Looking at the Sunset (Part 1)

So I just ran out to the back to sketch the volunteer peach tree along the falling-down wire fence, by way of introducing “Things I Leave Out of the Paintings,” which in turn is a subset of what it’s like to see the sunset here – which in turn has everything to do with how I started these paintings in the first place.

I’ll get to all that, I hope, but for now just want to say that this peach tree, which wasn’t even here when I started 14 years ago, stands right in the middle of our view of the mountains and the sun. 

As soon as I can I will also confess to the existence of the giant red oaks, the centrally placed quite large and quite dark cedar beyond this peach, the blackberry hedge, the other peach tree, and other visual obstructions. And how all of them put together are nothing compared to the woods in the distance, which, if measured on the scale of my canvas, would be seen to have jumped up more than an inch in this fairly short time. Which is a lot!

But for now, the peach.

Sunset, Wednesday, 6 May 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.Rain, and the world in back of the house – the long field leading down to the same arc of woods seen in most of these views – resembling a silvery fogged-up terrarium. Which struck me as funny the moment I thought of it, because what would the earth normally resemble more than a terrarium?

Sunset, Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.I was set to paint a sky that had been only gray – silver gray, dark gray, storm-scud white gray – then, about five minutes before sunset, the cover broke to show a distant sunlit cloud.

Less than one minute later, it was completely shut again behind the rock-ribbed vault.