In Blackberry Winter – Sunset, Tuesday, 10 May 2016

William Van Doren, IN BLACKBERRY WINTER. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on canvas, 28 x 30.

Blackberry Winter – Sunset, Friday, 24 May 2013

William Van Doren, BLACKBERRY WINTER. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.

The blossoms are out; the chill is in.

Rain/Earth (Sunset, Saturday, 14 May 2011)

William Van Doren, RAIN/EARTH (Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va.) Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.

Blackberry Influenced (Sunset, Friday, 13 May 2011)

William Van Doren, BLACKBERRY INFLUENCED (Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va.) Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.

Doesn’t seem chilly enough to qualify as “blackberry winter,” but the blossoms are out, and we have days that stay gray and temperatures that don't rise.

Sunset, Sunday, 5 July 2009

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

Longtime readers – i.e., anyone who’s been around since we started in April – will know that we looked out for, and never found, blackberry winter, but did have a spell of huckleberry autumn and then a winter of the wild rose. Today, with the daytime temperature settling at 63°F, we had what we might call Winter at Wimbledon.

Barbecuing would have been good to do, just to warm up.

Sunset, Thursday, 4 June 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.58°F at 8:30 p.m.

Honeysuckle winter might be that little period in the first week of June when an improvident painter who heats his house exclusively with a woodstove finds himself operating a chain saw in heavy rain while watching a socked-in sunset.

Tonight behind the grays I used asphaltum, transparent earth yellow, sepia and brown-pink, along with radiant violet. So, if it looks like there’s no earth in this painting ... that’s not entirely true.