Sunset, Tuesday, 12 January 2010

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

At an intersection today when a massive bassline erupted from a car behind me. I think everyone had their windows up (35°F), so it wasn’t at any sort of pain threshold, but it was all the more impressive for that reason. It was a deep rolling subterranean temblor that traveled right up your brainstem and out your follicles. It was a bass that could style your hair.

I had just been listening to Robert Johnson and wondered what Bob would think if he were at the crossroads and heard this. But now on another channel I had Conway Twitty singing “It’s Only Make Believe,” and at times the oncoming waves of bass broke perfectly underneath the lines of the song. I have to tell you: It was fantastic. “It’s Only Make Believe” with a huge bassline could be something truly awesomely fine.

Sunset, Monday, 11 January 2010

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

Sunset, Sunday, 10 January 2010

William Theodore Van Doren. Sunset from Opal, Fauquier County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

Sunset, Friday, 8 January 2010

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

Something like the big blue sky of high summer, today we had our version of high winter – deep and unforgiving, more wind than sky. Strangely, evening on such a day often brings a huge gold sun and then a band of violet-rose. The colors seem so close to spring, in general, the artist has to look to the temperature of his paints, or the picture may resemble a Parisian twilight in an old ad for Guerlain. Which might not be so bad.

Update on Saturday, January 9, 2010 at 09:09AM by BVD

Traveling for a couple of days – sunsets for Saturday and Sunday may not show up here until Monday.

Sunset, Thursday, 7 January 2010

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

A few snow showers along the Blue Ridge at sunset.

Earlier I pulled up to an intersection and beyond the red light thought I saw a pink flush over the haze horizon. Colors of coral and starfish, I decided. Long thin white clouds were foam. The blue sky between them turned out to be just that – blue sky. I was surprised to realize everything around me on the ground was the ocean and I was looking up through its surface.

Sunset, Wednesday, 6 January 2010

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

The big blue-green copper dome extends beyond blue snow mountains, past amethyst clouds, above carved oaks of gray-brown agate, over fields of broken green and white marble, over our house of sugar and salt, and my slate painted with powders of iron and zinc, glazed with ice. Crystalline evening.