Sunset, Thursday, 21 January 2010

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

Rain verging on sleet and snow – the approach of our old friend ‘wintry mix’.

I’m not sure anyone wants to see a rainy sunset on a wall calendar or, if today’s their birthday, receive a print of their special day as all gray. These are not merely commercial considerations – perhaps the time will come when I can find and show something of the inner nature of an outwardly dark day.

Sunset, Tuesday, 27 October 2009

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

Rain and completely overcast. It took a while to begin to see any sort of pattern in the clouds ... then things just sort of happened from there.

Sunset, Friday, 23 October 2009

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

Overcast and about to rain.

I was driving through the Alley Field (named for the narrow lane of grass at its entrance) with the firewood I’d just cut, when a fantastically vivid red leaf fluttered down through the branches in the woods just to my left – at an odd angle – and a little too fast. 

Cardinal.

Sunset, Saturday, 17 October 2009

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

.... visiting uniform gray, rain barrel gray, Union or Confederate Zouave red-and-gray, and I guess we also have today gray, yesterday gray, and day-before-yesterday gray. But tonight I commemorate some of the most colorful of all grays (hello, Pittsburgh ... and Washington) – the legendary Homestead Grays.

Sunset, Friday, 16 October 2009

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

Gray is gray – light gray, bright gray, brown gray, burnt charcoal, mother of pearl, Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow, violet-gray cotton candy, steel rail polished mirror gray, dishwater, orange-gray shade under sunlit zinnias, gray slag of molten metal, gray ocean surface sunrise, blazing midsummer sun somewhere inside the gray.

Sunset, Thursday, 17 September 2009

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

Gray has always seemed an excellent excuse for all the things that aren’t gray.