Looking at the Sunset (Part 4)

Early this evening (Thursday, 28 May 2009), looking south across Baltimore harbor from Fells Point:

Pencil and Prismacolor crayon on paper, 6 x 8.I like gray (of course), but I thought it was funny that just about everything I was seeing, with the possible exception of the sailboat, could be considered a shade of ‘gray’.

The sunset that I’ll be posting will be a composite of (gray) skies I watched as we drove to dinner for Laura’s birthday, in Hampden.

Sunset, Thursday, 28 May 2009

Hampden, Jones Falls Expressway, Baltimore, Md. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.This was on the way to Laura’s birthday dinner at the fabulous Woodberry Kitchen. (I had, among other things, a wonderful Stinging Nettle Soup.) This view is off a curve on the Jones Falls Expressway, one of my all-time favorite driving roads, even though it’s an interstate. It’s got plenty of billboards ... 

A little sketch and a note from earlier on this day can be found here.

Looking at the Sunset (Part 3)

From Baltimore harbor, Wednesday, 27 May 2009.

Baltimore. Pigment liner pen in Moleskine notebook.My sketches for sunset paintings are often in a sort of code based on years of painting the sky. This was about 30 minutes before sunset. The word ‘streak’ appears crossed out but is actually the word written over the lines, to remind me that there was a streak of light there.

Baltimore. Pencil on landscape notebook.There would be a third sketch five minutes later just concentrating on changes that took place with the sunset. Here I was working from a different place on the dock and getting more of what would be the actual sunset sky. When I do the oil painting at home on the 31st (see the post from yesterday), the result will depend as much on an overall impression and feeling as on all my notes, and may or may not pay attention to the city skyline.

Yours truly.

Update on Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 09:58AM by BVD

Overheard last night on the street [one dog owner to the other]:

”Oh, she’s a mix of rotweiler and Baltimore alley hound.”

Sunset, Wednesday, 27 May 2009

Fells Point, Baltimore, Md. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.This sunset corresponds to the entry “Looking at the Sunset (Part 3).”

Sunset, Monday, 4 May 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.At the very last minute, a weird cloud space opened up in a resolutely cold blue-gray sky – I guess meteorologists or pilots might call it a new cloud deck – with unexpected colors. The sky behind the streaks was not open as it might appear here but a sort of flat high yellowy silver.

When I was out with Flint today – my six- or seven-mile walk, his more than 10-mile ramble – I saw the blackberry blossoms were just barely beginning to come out. It was tempting to think the chilly wet weather of the last three days might be a case of Blackberry Winter, but it’s still a bit early for that here. Usually, in Virginia, it’s one to three days of 50s and even 40s while the blossoms are really out, which means, it’s a bit of a come-down for Spring. Last year we didn’t seem to have a Blackberry Winter at all. In other parts of the South, of course, the blossoms come out much sooner, and the change in weather can be very serious, as I found out today from a blog by someone in the Ozarks.

I want to note an addition to my “Friends I Do Know” list, and that’s Minás, which is the name of a wonderful artist as well as the name of his boutique and gallery in the Hampden neighborhood of Baltimore. Hampden’s the home of the annual Honfest, which is coming up on June 13th and 14th (hon).

To those who checked my post for last night’s sunset before this morning: I’ve added a link so that you can see the Hassam painting I mentioned, the one whose “rose tone” stayed with me for so long.