Jody Jackman & Chris Poulos Portraits : Castle Rock, Too : Faces, Wine Glass & Bottle Portraits 7/27/2010 Tuesday Late Afternoon

This was about me being an artist and doing everything to work with my artist vision and to shape and mold and draw together the various elements here surrounding and inspiring/firing and propelling me to do all that I could to capture the moment and express myself. It was a great opportunity and one that I feel that I rose to like I do at most. However, knowing that Chris Poulos was also an artist earlier before he turned his attentions to wine also inspired me quite a bit. It was fun to talk art with him and bounce things back and forth off each other.




It's now Wednesday, actually just Thursday morning at 12:05 AM on July 29th, 2010 and I am posting these images for you all to enjoy I hope. They tell a little bit of our stories as we three came together for me to try current vintages of the California winery's wines of CASTLE ROCK that is made up of seven people Chris informed me on Tuesday afternoon, July 27th, 2010.




Thanks Jody and Chris. I hope you like what you see here with these quick sketches that I did of the both of you along with my artsy digital Canon pictures. Cheers, TONY




P.S. I may write more later time and inspiration permitting.

July 27th, 2010 Black Beauty That Caught Me Off Guard & All My Attention & Adrenalin, Too! Wow!!

Could this young lady be any more beautiful, attractive and alluring?!? I hardly think so ... I can hardly think straight! Bella, linda, jolie fille- femme, muchacha-senora, senorita, young lady ... it all went by so quickly - in a swirl, out of focus, blow my mind, destroy-level me and my senses, much like the picture above : flooded with intense color and warmth and dazzle and lights!

LIke a robot, an artistic one : I snapped quickly away hoping and praying for the best!

I was loving what I was seeing! I admit it : no sense in denying any of it.

My senses reeled : spun out of control, out of whack. I was smitten. I was loving this flooding of all my senses to overdrive and overflowing, too.

This is me at my best and you might quickly add at my worst : an artist gone mad with artistic and animal passion all in one. A moment where I dash for my camera and hell be damned : I'm going to snap away not knowing exactly what I will get but pretty sure that I will be happy with whatever that might be?!?

Yep! I'm happy! I know, I know! I should not have : I should have left well alone. I'm bad to the bone. Yet in my defense I also think that I capture and tell a story her of female black feline beauty, youth and radiance and I am proud of that, too.

Sure, I snapped away and felt as if I was robbing or stealing something. I did not own this moment, I had no rights here. I was just lucky to have witnessed it and in this case also appreciated it as fully as my eyes would allow and as brief and fleeting as this encounter with my customer was. I must have said : hello. I must have asked her if I could help her? We must have spoken at least briefly? That all went by in a whirl. I was caught-up in the moment, I was transfixed and propelled and I felt emboldened here I am sure.

This young lady stole something from me, too. We both took from the other without knowing exactly what. It was simply too fleeting.

However, my camera captured all of this and these pictures tell a beautiful if brief story. They do not lie. They do not embellish. They do, however speak volumes and I am very pleased with them and I leave each and every one of you to appreciate them and to make up your own stories.

I for myself enjoyed immensely my brief encounter with this young lady. I do not know if I have ever seen her again? Does it matter? Yes, it would have been nice for our paths to have crossed again and they might have? I do not know? I have just recently stumbled upon these pictures and feel that enough time has passed between now and when I took them to finally share them in an artistic vignette with you all. Cheers and here's to the young and lovely lady that my eyes were transfixed by and which my camera caught some of the parts of in perhaps all of one or two minutes if that? Take care and enjoy, I only mean these pictures as a testament to my appreciation of her presence on me at this particular moment in time awhile back. TONY

Art In Nature ( Hand-Painted Wine Bottles From 1989 ), Hearty Burgundy Red Hibiscus, Lavender-Colored Butterfly Bush Flowers, Yellow Day Lillies,7/10

I took these various pictures here at home in northern Virginia before heading off to the Outer Banks, Salvo, North Carolina with my family last Sunday in the beginning of August, 2010.

These are of our blooming flowers in our back yard that have done especially well this season and I like how they spread and proliferate : invasive , too. I have a lot of work to do now in simple maintenance and that is okay by me. The magnificent colors come up and charm and surprise both us as the bevy of birds and bees and other bugs like lady bugs, etc that count on them as we use no herbicides and pesticides to and so everything is natural and healthy and rampant and insistent and basically except for the weeding and pulling of unwanted plant growth totally organic and unchecked by humans.

I love it : it rejuvenates and settles and pleases and teases and eases me like very little else considering all the stress and tension that we all find ourselves coping as best we can with these days.





Our local firemen here in Fairfax/ Annandale really came quickly to our distress call when a faulty propane tank leaked gas and caught on fire in two places. They are leaving our home here and in one of the pictures at least is the culprit : the propane gas canister that had to be drained completely of all the gas before the Hazmat team and the other firefighters could leave. It took three hours and I did suffer a couple of burns to my right thumb and right pinky finger that now today, Monday August 9th, 2010 seem to be largely healed.




Enjoy these pictures and stay-tuned for more as I am off all this week as well and look forward to doing lots more artwork as well as taking and posting the the pictures and writing about them.





Above is one of my hand-painted wine bottles that I believe I painted with acrylics back in 1989 ...

How time flies ...





The Monarch butterflies love these butterfly lavender bush flowers that we have many of all summer long ...




Above is my hand-painted green Bordeaux-shaped wine bottle back from 1989 ...





Lots to inspire me all the time.






The color of this hearty hibiscus above is sensational. I'm drawn to it each and every year. There are two more blooms now outside up on our hillside to the left of our big deck and I will probably go check them out a bit later. I can't help myself, really I can't. Cheers, TONY