Sunset, Friday, 18 June 2010

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

With the solstice just three days away, this is about as far north as I ever see the sun setting along the mountains here.

Sunset, Friday, 11 June 2010

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

Dark limbs above me in the edge of the woods reach higher as the sun falls, breathe in the heat here and breathe out something like a condensation, the almost invisible blue summer evening haze, humid and cool, a shadow, a form of light gathering on the ground.

Sunset, Monday, 15 March 2010

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

Out today in the world it was clay and gray, brown leaf and dark needle, the curled beech papers along with a scattering of little blackjack oaks the last old foliage about ready to drop, and the woods as open as they’ll ever be. Every year there must be a moment when beechy parchments fall and new greens shoot, but that’s a secret ceremony I’ve never managed to witness.

Sunset, Saturday, 13 March 2010

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

I cheated tonight’s perspective slightly north, or right, almost to a summertime sunset horizon, since that’s where everything seemed to be happening.

Sunset, Monday, 8 March 2010

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

I hope you might almost be able to tell from the softening colors of the mountains and sky that we’re finally hearing the first tree frogs – “peepers” – singing in the evening.

Sunset, Tuesday, 2 March 2010

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

March has very nearly played lamb and lion on consecutive days. Today it was a wet snow through most of the afternoon. Not that cold but after about four miles with Flint the foxhound, my toes were numb for an hour. Even Piney Mountain, less than two miles away, elevation 1116 feet (and usually out of the picture frame to the right, or north, in the sunsets), was shrouded in cold snow fog.

When I look at some paintings I see colors oscillating, side to side, as if coming forward – as if light does not fade but there is a dimension in which it keeps gathering strength, and colors, even grays, reach unknown intensities.