View From Carter Mountain

A few weeks ago Meg West invited me to join her up at Carter Mountain Orchard for a painting outing. I set up on the back deck of the shop, and this painting was the result. If you're ever in Charlottesville, it's worth a visit to this orchard, one of my favorite views (and energetic centers) of a beautiful part of the world. In fact, it turns out that Carter Mountain Orchard's second annual Peach Festival, complete with free hayrides, is going on there today and tomorrow. See http://www.cartermountainorchard.com/; it's on the road to Monticello, look for the sign on the right.

This painting is one of several now hanging at Java Dragon Coffee Shop, Preston Plaza, Charlottesville. It's apparently a good representation — as soon as I hung it, a customer said "That looks like the view from Carter Mountain."

Oil on canvas, 16" x 20"

Show at Java Dragon

I just finished hanging a show of my latest artwork at Java Dragon Coffee Shop in Charlottesville, Virginia. It will be up through the month of August. A couple of customers just came in and oohed and ahhed, which makes me happy! The opening is planned for Friday, August 5, 5:00-8:00 p.m..

By the Koi Pond

When I began painting this patch of delicately flowering vegetation in the changing light, I could only trust there was a composition there. Somehow a painting emerged. Painted en plein air alongside the koi pond at the Serenity Ridge retreat center, Nelson County, Va., June 2011. (See also "Koi Pond at Serenity Ridge.") Oil on canvas, 20" x 16"

Window Flowers

I painted this in early December 2010 in my friend Eileen's studio, as a homework assignment for a painting class with Rick Weaver. Oil on canvas, 12" x 9".  

SOLD - placed in the collection of Rogelio Jaramillo Flores, Mexico

Rick is an excellent instructor — he teaches the same way he paints, continually exploring, fresh, insightful, with amazing dedication and discipline and a strong attention to composition and to an understanding of "what the painting is about." He's a consummate pro; see his work at his Website: http://www.richardweaver.net/painting.htm

View From Lama House

I painted this a few weeks ago (June 2011) at Serenity Ridge, a Tibetan Bon Buddhist retreat center in Nelson County, Va. It's a view from the back porch of the lama house, not long before the start of a three-week summer retreat. Oil on canvas, 20" x 16"

Meg West and I plan to go soon up to the retreat center to do more painting, hopefully adding to the artwork we're to present in our upcoming group show "Side by Side: Five Women Who Paint Together" — Sept. 1 through 30, 2011, at the Gallery @ 5th and Water, Charlottesville, Va.

Valley View, Highland County

From a fall 2010 painting trip to Highland County, Virginia, with fellow plein-air painters Meg, Eileen and Karen: a view of the valley, painted from the roadside in the warm afternoon sun.
The glitch in the upper right is not in the painting, just the photo. Awaiting PhotoShop ...

Monticello Spiral

On March 12, 2011, my dad and I took a couple of folding chairs up to Monticello to enjoy a sunny, breezy taste of early spring atop Jefferson's "little mountain." My father wandered the grounds and then read from his history book; I painted these unidentified little flowers just outside the back entrance. An idyllic afternoon. Gouache on watercolor paper, 9" x 12"

Evening Grasses

Done last fall 2010 in Highland County, Virginia, during an outing with Meg, Eileen and Karen. We had already gone out for two serious painting outings that day, and this little gouache was done just after our ritual evening rum smoothie — painted on the fly as the sun was dipping behind the mountains. Gouache on watercolor paper, 12" x 9".

Koi Pond at Serenity Ridge

This landscape painting is the fruit of a few days in June at the Serenity Ridge retreat center in Nelson County, Va.: a little waterfall at the koi pond next to the caretaker's cottage. The only indication of the healthy, active carp within is a splash of red at the bottom. Oil on canvas, 28" x 22"

Morning at Chiles Orchard

This is one of a number of paintings that will go in an upcoming group show this September at the Gallery @ 5th & Water, Charlottesville, Va. From a Sept. 6, 2010, outing with Meg and Eileen at Chiles Peach Orchard, parked among the trees. Cool morning, gorgeous views, and freshly fallen fruit on the ground. A heavenly way to start the day ... Gouache on watercolor paper, 9"x12"