Spring green

Apologies to William Morris and his workshop, of course the original wallpaper this image is from was more subtle but out my window, after the spring rain, this glowing green is what is going on in Virginia right about now.

Virginia State Parks

They are excellent and some have historic log cabins. Many happy memories.

New poster, actually five years old

I never settled with this one, yet coming across it now it looks very good - as a small graphic. Have to work on the details before it gets printed full size.

New poster

Reston, VA

Albert Pinkham Ryder

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly, completed by 1887

Flying Dutchman. Ryder inherited some kind of psychedelic mind from his fellow New Bedford born Herman Melville? He carried on after Eugene Delacroix died? The glowing ship forever doomed to sail turbulent seas. The dead communicating urgently with the living. The Flying Dutchman theme appears in many art forms, famously in Wagner’s opera of the same name.

Ryder’s paintings are always small, thick and cracking from careless technique and nuts. Gloriously so.

Cooper Hewitt exhibit of a commercial artist omg

Yay for the Cooper Hewitt, which is the Smithsonian’s museum of Design. It is exhibiting the work of Kauffer and I am here for it!

from the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt exhibit; The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the designer, 1939 Thanks for letting me show this, for educational purposes and for admiration purposes I do not intend to monetize it in any way Thank you

E'rybody watch this movie

So joyful and full of life. This is a great way to start the New Year! LOVED it

https://www.biggestlittlefarmmovie.com

Wayne Thiebaud

A painter’s painter. Brilliant colorist, the definition of a California artist. Thank you for your genius.

In his paintings there will often be a fascinating and surprising line of vivid color that I very much thought of when doing some recent landscape-oriented pieces (The Early Mountain vineyard, and the Dyke Marsh) in this perhaps the ultramarine shadows

Photo is from Smithsonian? I was googling around, and this is really a photo of me googling around . . .

LTBL 2021 animals of Virginia silhouettes

Pastels

Luscious colors, messy dust - did this sketch in the shed. Chilly!

When is an artwork finished? - see updates 12/18/21

It is a question that all artists I know of wrestle with from time to time. This is one that I keep tinkering with. I think it’s where I want it to be - it gives an idea of the diverse, eclectic and small scale feeling of this area that we have gotten to know and become fond of. I deliberately leave out the items that would really make it ‘real’ - people, cars, busses, signs - so it is a bit of a fantasy? Do we often tend to ‘ look through’ those of omnipresent parts of our everyday existence?

This is better for the colors? Part of the point is the diversity, the character, the color both metaphorically and literally

And this has an added layer of - street life!

Detail of the streetlife silhouettes

Love love love

Agrarian Trust, puts together farmers with land they can farm without the giant expense of purchasing land. In Roanoke, there’s a young farmer who is working people’s back yards. Brilliant!

Mod home

Someone with a mod home, commission me for a home portrait!

Firefly in Charlottesville - poster display

Hey! This is a community center almost, a restaurant with no pretension and friendly folks, a neighborhood place like I’ve not seen in Charlottesville. I’m happy to have been asked to install posters there so come on by starting tomorrow, Friday October 15th.

https://www.fireflycville.com

oooh large format posters now possible

I do get asked about larger posters, such as 30x40 or the classic movie poster size which is 27x40 (though they can get much larger, especially the older ones.)

I think I can comfortably offer 24x36 which is similar proportion to the 13x19 native format I work with. Of course I need to job out the printing, at least for now though I am considering purchasing a roll-fed printer (which takes up a lot of floor space - something I do not have) Price will be around $300? These are art prints: they are not mass produced on a giant four color press, they are printed on matte white paper and have that same saturated silkscreen-like Big Color.