The Old Homestead


16X20 oil on stretched canvas, completed 08/21/2015


#art #painting #oilpainting #landscape #pastoral #rural #tennessee

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

November Sketchbook, Day #5 - Myth-conceptions

Image
Things are not always what they seem, and the same holds true for dragons. At first glance, this fellow seems to be swooping in for a quick meal. But look a little more closely - those fluffy little crows are asleep. And the dragon - he's not landing. He sits, delicately balanced on the thin wire. His outstretched wings provide an awning to shelter the balls of fluff at his feet from the pouring rain. These birds aren't his dinner. They're his friends. Green dragons, traditionally, are considered more benign. They prefer quiet, green spaces like deep woods or mountain tops to the habitations of man, but this is due more to man's distrust than the dragon's nature.They are historically the more non-violent of the dragon races. This fellow is a kind of dragon called a wyvern , that is, it has wings instead of a front pair of limbs. The dragons of Skyrim  are of this genus, only much, much larger. It is commonly debated whether or not wyverns are even dragons. This...
Read more

December Sketchbook: Bob Cratchit's House

Image
Happy Holidays, my friends! This entry in the December sketchbook is another piece of our Christmas village - my own rendition of Bob Cratchit's house from A Christmas Carol . I've been choosing these complex buildings and complicated textures because I'm trying to get in some practice with pen and ink techniques. Here I've selectively used hatching to accentuate some of the features of the house, like the partially exposed brick, rickety roof shingles, unfinished add-on, and "bullseye" glass window panes. After all, Bob Cratchit was a poor man who could only barely afford to keep his family of 8, so it would stand to reason that his house might look a bit run down, but he does the best he can on his 15 bob a week. I had originally thought to do this one in color, but after it was finished, I liked the way it looked in black and white better. I was worried that colored pencils would hide the delicate details and watercolor would smear the ink, and thi...
Read more

December Sketchbook: Christmas is Where You Make It

Image
The holidays are supposed to be a time of thanks for all we've received and a time of hope for what the future will bring, In spite of his unfortunate circumstances, this resident of our Christmas Village has still gone out of his way to publicly demonstrate his holiday cheer. It saddens me when I hear people expressing the idea of the holiday in dollar signs. You don't have to be rich to be happy, and you don't have to live in a mansion of gold to be thankful. Happiness and contentment come from within. I think Dr. Seuss hit the mark pretty well in his book,  How the Grinch Stole Christmas . In the tale, a mean, unhappy creature called the Grinch despises the contented little people of Whoville and their bright, noisy Christmas, so he makes up his mind to "steal Christmas" so that he doesn't have to listen to it any more. He goes through a lot of trouble to steal every last thing he can find that's even remotely associated with the holiday, and the...
Read more