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, 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, 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.