Poof!

Little airplane made of foam
Recent stocking stuffer
Now the world’s first indoor
Predator drone
Hovers along the ceilings
Targets chilly drafts
Bad ideas
The wastes of time
Enemy energies
Some days I’m in hiding.

Sunset, Friday, 5 February 2010

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

With Ethel Cole’s “snowpocalypse” getting under way here about daybreak – there's now a Twitter feed with the snowpocalypse tag – and the Washington Post has come up with Snowmageddon – Laura and I took Flint on a run of around three miles. Here are a few shots (photos by Laura Owen Sutherland) ...

Sunset, Monday, 28 December 2009

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

I did a small painting for a friend today based on a Chinese ink painting from about 1750 – Willow and Peach Blossoms, by Li Shan. I thought about it later, while I was painting the sunset, because I’m sometimes uncertain whether this daily practice is really worthwhile. I realized how wonderful it might be if Li Shan had left a record of his observations of daily sunsets or sunrises in the 18th century.

Today is the eighth anniversary of the day we adopted Flint (the fabulous foxhound) from the Fluvanna County SPCA. Since I’ve mentioned him in a million posts and shown him only once, I thought I’d give him a little more air time. Here’s a formal profile of Flint watching something out the living room window:

Laura Owen Sutherland

Very recent:

Laura Owen Sutherland

And very typical:

L.O.S.

Sunset, Thursday, 24 December 2009

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

On the way, finally, to cut a tree – way way too big for any normal living room, as I’m sure you would have observed in an instant –

(we are now improvising alternative arrangements for decorating our living room) – anyway, on this arduous one-mile fool’s errand (my fool’s errands are always arduous, it seems to be my style) – I took a break.

(The tree was found in a field doomed to be cleared and developed, a situation for another time, perhaps.)

I fell straight back in the snow, to look up at what seemed an endless polar blue. (A blue that paled considerably by sunset.) The considerable strains of our snowstorm-blocked preparations eased. What I saw was a fantastic blue that kept changing depths, behind the clean, slightly shaggy yet almost polished-looking pale brown top branches of big white oaks. For that moment, sky and trees were a Christmas card I gave myself.

Sunset, Saturday, 19 December 2009

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

About 20 inches of snow later, here we are. Interesting how the color of the snow changes in the depth of the storm, from all the fugitive tints I was talking about yesterday to a sort of deep silver.

Once again we had firewood chores, and I cut and then Laura and I carried wood through the drifts from a shed about 100 yards or so away. Before that, she took this shot of another of the landlord’s neglected sheds, near our front yard:

Laura Owen Sutherland

As we were going down to the other ‘barn’ to get the wood, we looked back at the house:

Laura Owen Sutherland

The strange glow – in the same direction as my sunset view – comes from the GE Fanuc facility about a mile away on Route 29.

Sunset, Tuesday, 1 September 2009

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

I was very excited tonight to see, I think for the first time since this site started, a perfectly clear, ‘blank’ sky to work with. I’d been wondering what I’d do if I got one of these again; although this may not seem like much of a departure, it reflects development that’s been going on in the paintings for the past six weeks or so.

As soon as this painting was done, the sky went through a phenomenal series of twilight changes. The result was a deeply glowing old-gold horizon, a dome of intense blue-violet and, in between, a rose-violet aura that shimmered like Northern Lights. Yes, yes, I just may have to try to paint it tomorrow.

I’ve spent much of the day catching up with posts and images from Pittsburgh, and find myself not having thought of a single thing to say for tonight, so I’ll break style a bit and post some ‘home photos’ that each reprise aspects of the trip.

From the 27th, this is my Aunt Millie and me in her kitchen on her 90th birthday. In case you somehow can’t tell from the photo, Millie is a joy.

As reported on the 28th, we went up the Duquesne Incline – and here we’re at the top. The trio of yellow bridges that you can perhaps just make out on the Allegheny River, after the first yellow bridge, as mentioned on the 29th, are the Roberto Clemente, the Andy Warhol, and the Rachel Carson.

Finally, we’ve also discussed Pittsburgh (“SIXBURGH”) and football. Well, amazingly, everywhere we went, even at the top of the Duquesne Incline ...

... we spotted celebrity athletes with names like Hines Ward, Troy Polamalu, and Ben Roethlisberger. Fantastic!