Sunset, Sunday, 7 March 2010

William Theodore Van Doren. Sunset from Brightwood, Culpeper County, Va. Oil on linen, 16 x 20.

This was the third version of Sunday’s sunset that I sketched and more or less completely ‘got’ while we were on the road home from Westminster, Maryland, via Frederick and Leesburg. Ultimately I felt I had to get the “pink ray” that shot up on the left.

Sunset, Saturday, 6 March 2010

William Theodore Van Doren. Sunset from Nicoll Avenue & York Road, Baltimore, Md. Oil on Arches watercolor block, 16 x 20.

The most recent sunset I’d done from this spot, looking across York Road to the western end of Nicoll Avenue, was on November 14th. If this one looks vaguely French, that’s good for Jane G. on her birthday, although Jane is more than vaguely French. In fact I don’t think Jane is ever just vaguely anything.

Poof!

Little airplane made of foam
Recent stocking stuffer
Now the world’s first indoor
Predator drone
Hovers along the ceilings
Targets chilly drafts
Bad ideas
The wastes of time
Enemy energies
Some days I’m in hiding.

Baltimore Sunset (A Note)

Tonight’s sunset, when it gets posted (probably not until Monday, ditto for tomorrow’s), will come from a vantage point on York Road in northern Baltimore, at a spot where I’ve done several others. Right now it’s just a cryptic-looking ballpoint sketch in a notebook with a few words scribbled all over it, like “dirty pale [‘pale’ underlined three times] gold,” “pale drained blue,” “stronger blue.” I talked with a friend about this, about how, after watching and painting a few thousand sunsets, it becomes more and more possible to remember them, or get them into a linear sketch. There develops a shorthand vocabulary of the sky that can contain personal shades of distinction and bring back the most important thing, which is, the moment.

Sunset, Friday, 5 March 2010

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

Henry David Thoreau:

Unless you watch, you do not know when the sun goes down. It is like a candle extinguished without smoke. A moment ago you saw that glittering orb amid the dry oak leaves in the horizon and now you can detect no trace of it.

In our case we have contrails for smoke.

Update on Saturday, March 6, 2010 at 08:29AM by BVD

This probably wasn’t clear: I like contrails. 

Update on Saturday, March 6, 2010 at 08:33AM by BVD

And smoke, too, for that matter.

The Length of Time

Sun on the back of a white wicker chair
Stays there
And stays there
And stays.