Saturday, September 10, 2011

Waterford House



Waterford, Virginia, home of the "Village Winery" with its apple and elderberry wines, is one of my architectural destinations. It's full of beautiful old 19th and even 18th century houses, many of which have wood-columned porches which I love. This town was bypassed by developers after the Civil War due to political reasons, and as a result has remained old and not very active, although it was for a while in the 20th century a writers' and artists' colony. Every year the town explodes for one weekend in October when a huge arts and crafts festival takes place there. The rest of the year it is filled with a quiet, older population, most of them commuters to the urban areas.

I did a lot of photography in Waterford, something which is a popular tourist pastime. I'd like to sit in the town and draw on site, but it isn't always possible and the cold weather is just around the corner (sigh). So I draw the town from my photographs, as I did with this fine restored old house. Some art schools and galleries refuse to consider a drawing or painting from a photograph to be "real art," only commercial art; an image must only be done from life, direct viewing, on site. Fortunately other art concerns are not as picky and I am hoping that this architectural study, along with others, will be shown on a gallery wall. I plan to add some color to this, but here's the inks alone for now.

Waterford house drawing is 8" x 10", brown ink in Rapidograph technical pen, September 8-9, 2011.

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