Dog Day Afternoon – Sunset, Tuesday, 17 January 2012

William Van Doren, DOG DAY AFTERNOON. Sunset from Westfield Road, Charlottesville, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.

At the vet, 15 minutes before it started raining.

Tweets Illustrated: What I Saw At Breakfast, Part 2

William Van Doren, pencil on CVS notepad, 4x6.

Tweets Illustrated: Hickory Branch, Hickory Trail

William Van Doren, pencil on CVS scratch pads, 4 x 6.

From the Moment & Horizon Twitter feed.

Extemporaneous Song for My Hound Dog

As we prepare to go out on our thrice-weekly cross-country expedition ...

Holes in my socks
Head full of rocks
Live in a box
With a dog who talks ...

Sunset, Friday, 14 May 2010

William Theodore Van Doren. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

Surrounded by storms (much to the chagrin of Flint), including a huge steel-gray tower to the east, at my back, with sheets of rain and of lightning, I walked up the road a quarter-mile to get a better look at the mountains, the bunch of paintbrushes in my fist a magic deterrent, no doubt, to lightning bolts.

Sunset, Tuesday, 2 March 2010

William Theodore Van Doren. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

March has very nearly played lamb and lion on consecutive days. Today it was a wet snow through most of the afternoon. Not that cold but after about four miles with Flint the foxhound, my toes were numb for an hour. Even Piney Mountain, less than two miles away, elevation 1116 feet (and usually out of the picture frame to the right, or north, in the sunsets), was shrouded in cold snow fog.

When I look at some paintings I see colors oscillating, side to side, as if coming forward – as if light does not fade but there is a dimension in which it keeps gathering strength, and colors, even grays, reach unknown intensities.