Summer Fields

30" x 38"

oil on canvas

The thing about central Loudoun County, Virginia, is that you can still find places that seem to be in the middle of nowhere - empty and rural and quiet - and yet just a mile or two away are towns and houses and traffic and population. My task is to search out these places that seem to be beyond the times and temporal business of today. This painting was made at one of those places, somewhere near Hamilton and not far off from Leesburg, yet on a dirt road and away from everything. 

Barn at Fields' Farm

oil on panel

10" x 15"

Another view of the same barn.  I loved being able to roam around that old farm. It had been sold to the county for a new school but then the construction was held up for five years. I was always completely alone and able to choose my subjects and work in complete serenity. Unfortunately, the county managed to push through the school's construction and now the old farm is completely gone. The wise person said "nothing is gained without giving up something else."  

November Woods

44" x 50"

This big painting started out on site, bungee corded to an old, large aluminum easel with my french easel used for a balast / anchor against any breeze that might come up. After struggling with it for a couple of visits to the small creek not too far from home, the finishing work was done in my studio. Degas wrote that first year art students should draw for a year from plaster casts with the second year students moving up to actual still life subjects. Third year students would draw for another year, this time from the human figure. The study and application from the first three years should be such that the fourth year students would work only from memory of what had been seen.  I had to go back to look again and again on this one. Maybe modern man's memory just isn't as supple.