Thursday, August 23, 2012

What a day!

In a week full of events and activity, yesterday was a gem.

Jackie and I went out to the Philip Carter Winery in Hume VA, to help our friend, Mark Isaacs, hang a show of his large landscape paintings. The weather was perfect, with blue skies sporting lots of clouds shifting around, and bright sunlight making all the greens and reds of the land show up brightly.

The Winery gallery is set on a hill overlooking its vineyard, with the foothills of the Appalachians in the background, and, now, a very good art show gracing its walls.

(And by the way I've always spelled 'vineyard' as 'vinyard' but I am told by these damn know-it-all machines that that spelling is 'obsolete' - the tyranny of the machines and their custodians...)

When the job was finished, we went peach picking at the Hartland Orchards just across 66 from the Winery exit. Luck! Their peach season is ending tomorrow.

Spent hours in the orchard and to and from. Came home with almost 500 pictures, some of which (maybe 10 or so) will end up becoming paintings.

Here's something I noticed while sorting through those pictures: the ones I like best for potential paintings are pictures that I don't have to adjust in any way. Every now and then one of them just has the right balance of light and dark, color and composition. These are not necessarily images that I have captured with deliberation - they are almost always accidental.

Hmmm, does the intent gets in the way, or does the eye just appreciate not having to do all the work in advance?





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