In No Mood to Cooperate (Sunset, Friday, 3 September 2010)

William Van Doren, In No Mood to Cooperate (Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va.) Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.

The sky was in no mood to be pretty, wear something nice, or even talk. The air stayed strangely hot throughout sunset, in front of a wall of gray that the National Weather Service assures us we will experience as ‘Partly Cloudy’. The only evidence that they might not have their National completely up their Service was, I could still just see the mountains.

Burner (Sunset, Thursday, 2 September 2010)

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

One of the funnest parts was finding/mixing the dirty gray – largely sepia. And looking for a way to convey the sun.

September X August (Sunset, Wednesday, 1 September 2010)

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

98° today. That was at the airport, three miles distant as the G5 flies. Around 93° in the shade of the porch, under the oaks. That’s pretty fearsome for here.

August X August (Sunset, Tuesday, 31 August 2010)

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

The Sky’s Not the Limit (1) (Sunset, Monday, 30 August 2010)

William Van Doren, The Sky’s Not the Limit (1) (Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va.) Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.

I added the numeral in parentheses because I have a feeling I’ll be using the title again. It’s related, in a way, to the dark areas people often call borders – and maybe that’s what they are – ultimately they’ll be whatever people say they are. To me they’ve always represented something beyond, or beneath – a substrate of what we call reality – a place from which our experience emerges at every moment. Of course, it’s also a border.

Feature(Fear)less (Sunset, Sunday, 29 August 2010)

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

Skies that many people might say have “nothing” in them or that are “featureless” – all gray, all clear, or, like tonight’s, hazy but cloudless – seem to me like provocations. A time to paint.