exists to create art which reflects the beauty and the glory of God, to use art to comfort and encourage people, and to inspire others to pursue the arts.
This was painted from a photo I took at the beautiful White Oak Farms in Mount Vernon, Ohio, a while back. This thing must have been 20 feet high and big enough to hold an awful lot of bats.
Twinkle, twinkle little bat How I wonder what you're at! Up above the world you fly, Like a tea-tray in the sky. -- Lewis Carroll
I know, I know… It is not autumn. I just liked this photo that I had taken of a barn across the road from us in Ohio. I took a lot of photos of that particular barn. It was always there, looking good, when I took Toby out for a walk. (Oh, I miss him…)
This past week, I decided to give painting outdoors another try. I have only done it one other time, in Ohio, in front of my garage of the field across the road. So, Ron agreed to accompany me and we loaded up and took my stuff to the clubhouse here in the park. This park has about three good sized lakes and one of them is across from the clubhouse. I looked around and decided to paint the clubhouse, so I set up and Ron set up the chairs and he sat down in the sunshine. I was under a big old oak tree. I got to painting. People rode by in their golf carts and cars and walked by. They all looked at me, but few said anything. One guy stopped and laughed and said, “That alligator really has his eye on you.” Then he took off. I looked around and didn’t see anything, so I just kept painting. We were out for about an hour and I decided that it was time to go. As we were packing up, Ron saw the alligator. We were on the edge of a small, dry retention pond. The alligator, which was about six feet long, was sunning himself on the other edge, about 50 feet away. He was well camouflaged by all the grass and stuff. We were glad to be on our way home. LOL! I don’t know if I will do it, again. Not because of the alligator, but because it is such a big job to get all my stuff set up and then to break it back down and load it up. We will see.
The years rolled their brutal course down the hill of time. Still poor, my clothes still smelling of the horse barn, still writing those doubtful poems where too much emotion clashed with too many words. — Paul Engle
This is what we see from our living room window. Well, not all of what we see. Using artistic license, I left out a LOT! The mobile homes here are so close together, that I could not get it to look right when putting all the stuff in the picture, so I made it look like there was only one home. Basically, I was loving on those trees…
I have a feeling I will be doing quite a few paintings of those trees. I love them. The big one is also a rookery, which I want to capture at some point. This is an 8×10 oil on panel which was done wet on wet.
This morning, I started soaking some quinoa for lunch and as I stirred it, I was fascinated by the pattern of the grains swirling in the water. So, got the camera and took some shots.
The quinoa was good, by the way.
I started reading Murder at the Washington Tribune by Margaret Truman, but I gave up. I got almost a quarter of the way through, but found myself wincing and not feeling good, so I decided not to read it. If you enjoy gritty hard crime thrillers, then they may be for you. I want to feel good when I read, so I go for cozy. I have decided to start Jan Karon’s Mitford Series again. So cozy, fun, and relaxing. I have a hardcopy of the bedside companion, which I quote from, below. But, in the meantime, I present my latest psalm to the Lord.
Of all situations for a constant residence, that which appears to me most delightful is a little village … with inhabitants whose faces are as familiar to us as the flowers in our garden; a little world of our own, close-packed and insulated like ants in an ant-hill, or bees in a hive, or sheep in a fold, or nuns in a convent, or sailors in a ship; where we know every one, are known to every one, interested in every one and authorized to hope that every one feels an interest in us.
How pleasant it is to slide into these true-hearted feelings from the kindly and unconscious influence of habit and to learn to know and to love the people about us, with all their peculiarities, just as we learn to know and to love the nooks and turns of the shady lanes and sunny commons that we pass every day.
… nothing is so delightful as to sit down in a country village in one of Miss Austen’s delicious novels, quite sure before we leave it to become intimate with every spot and every person it contains.
— as quoted by Jan Karon (from Our Village by Mary Russell Mitford) in her book The Mitford Bedside Companion
Virginia C. McCoy Fine Art 
You must be logged in to post a comment.