Oakfall (Sunset, Friday, 3 December 2010)

William Van Doren, OAKFALL (Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va.) Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.

Just before sunset I felled a large white oak, dead of course, for firewood. It struck me that the day gone by could provide fuel much like the fallen tree, except the day is never entirely consumed.

Anonymous (Sunset, Thursday, 2 December 2010)

William Van Doren, ANONYMOUS (Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va.) Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.

Air Power (Sunset, Wednesday, 1 December 2010)

William Van Doren, AIR POWER (Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va.) Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.

West of Eden (Sunset, Tuesday, 30 November 2010)

William Van Doren, WEST OF EDEN (Sunset from Rosena, Albemarle County, Va.) Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.

Sunset arrived in the rain, in the middle of a three-hour saga involving Laura’s car, a flat tire and a stuck wheel. Thanks to my brother Steve, a shade-tree mechanical genius, for telling me how to free the wheel. (Place my butt down in the pool of water adjacent to the car, put both heels together, kick the sides and the top of the wheel, and it’ll pop right off. After four kicks, I’ll be damned, it popped.)

This all happened at Rosena, a tiny place at the foot of the western side of the Southwest Mountains. During a lull in the action I wandered over to a Virginia historic marker on the roadside and read that Thomas Jefferson considered the Southwest Mountains “the Eden of the United States.” I wouldn’t argue, even while wet and stranded on the slope. 

Through (Sunset, Monday, 29 November 2010)

William Van Doren, THROUGH (Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va.) Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.

Therapeutic Twilight (Sunset/Twilight, Sunday, 28 November 2010)

William Van Doren, THERAPEUTIC TWILIGHT (Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va.) Oil on watercolor block, 13 x 19.

Prescription for gastroenteritis, aka “stomach bug”: get rest, drink fluids, paint sunset.