There’s a Riot Goin’ On (Sunset, Wednesday, 14 September 2011)

William Theodore Van Doren, THERE’S A RIOT GOIN’ ON (Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va.) Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.Although this isn’t the title of the song I’m thinking of (“Riot in Cellblock #9”), it will serve as a belated tribute to the great (Baltimore’s own) Jerry Leiber.

Cul-de-Jour (Sunset, Saturday, 12 March 2011)

William Van Doren, CUL-DE-JOUR (Sunset from York Road near Northern Parkway, Baltimore, Md.) Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.In north Baltimore, looking across York Road where Nicoll Avenue ends in a cul-de-sac.

Back in Baltimore (Sunset, Friday, 11 March 2011)

William Van Doren, BACK IN BALTIMORE (Sunset from St. Paul Street & University Parkway, Baltimore, Md.) Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.

From my brother Steve’s room on the eighth floor of Union Memorial Hospital, after his successful back surgery. The view is up University Parkway toward the Johns Hopkins Homewood campus, Marylander apartments at far left.

Note in Transit

I’m moving around up in the Baltimore area since yesterday and unable to shoot and post paintings; I should be catching up on the sunset series starting Monday. Yesterday’s sunset was the view out the window of a hospital room (not mine), near my alma mater, Johns Hopkins; tonight’s should be a view I’ve painted several times before, near York Road and Northern Parkway. It’s always interesting, the deciding what to do with all the buildings ...

Sunset, Saturday, 6 March 2010

William Theodore Van Doren. Sunset from Nicoll Avenue & York Road, Baltimore, Md. Oil on Arches watercolor block, 16 x 20.

The most recent sunset I’d done from this spot, looking across York Road to the western end of Nicoll Avenue, was on November 14th. If this one looks vaguely French, that’s good for Jane G. on her birthday, although Jane is more than vaguely French. In fact I don’t think Jane is ever just vaguely anything.

Baltimore Sunset (A Note)

Tonight’s sunset, when it gets posted (probably not until Monday, ditto for tomorrow’s), will come from a vantage point on York Road in northern Baltimore, at a spot where I’ve done several others. Right now it’s just a cryptic-looking ballpoint sketch in a notebook with a few words scribbled all over it, like “dirty pale [‘pale’ underlined three times] gold,” “pale drained blue,” “stronger blue.” I talked with a friend about this, about how, after watching and painting a few thousand sunsets, it becomes more and more possible to remember them, or get them into a linear sketch. There develops a shorthand vocabulary of the sky that can contain personal shades of distinction and bring back the most important thing, which is, the moment.