More Roanoke Beauty near The Blue Ridge Parkway and The Radford Roosting Festival this Weekend!

My Artwork

Leaving Roanoke       Original tempera painting in white mat   18"x24"     $864.00

Prints on paper or canvas available at    KENDALL KESSLER ART

Here is another Roanoke painting that looks at the Blue Ridge Mountains from the inside.  In "Leaving Roanoke" I have captured a special moment when the car lights and street light have just come on but it isn't dark yet.  

The colors of light and shade are still prominent and the mood is serene even though the traffic is heavy.

The view of the mountain ridge reminds us of  a great city that is nestled in the gorgeous Blue Ridge Mountains!

Ferrum  Original Oil Painting has been sold

Prints on paper or canvas available at   KENDALL KESSLER ART

Kendall Kessler Youtube videos

I also have some of my work on Youtube!  Please check out my paintings there as well as my website.  I am an amateur pianist so I included a number of piano pieces I like as background music.

I have one about my Beautiful Nude series which includes my drawing, "Reaching Out", which was chosen out of over 3 million works of art on Fine Art America to be on The Mindy Project.  

It is in the main character's office and there have been many shots of it in various episodes.  The show took a break but will be back in April.

Here is the link!    KENDALL KESSLER BEAUTIFUL NUDE DRAWING ON THE MINDY PROJECT

Life with The Bird and Word Man - Clyde Kessler

The Radford Roosting Festival is this week-end and we are hoping for good weather so the Bird Man can do his thing and entertain participants in his bird walk!  Don't miss it!

Radford Roosting Festival

RADFORD, VA -The Radford Visitor’s Center will be celebrating the 7th annual Radford Roosting Festival on Saturday, March 29rd in Bisset Park from noon – 3 pm.  Families are welcome and there is no admission charge.

This year’s festival will include live birds, educational birding stations, a photo contest and children’s activities.

There are three scheduled presentations that are sure to be of interest to attendees.

Scheduled presentations are:

12:00 p.m.-Jason Davis/SELU

‘Flying family dynamics: Bluebirds, parenting and stress’

  1:00 p.m.- Sarah Foltz

‘Town & country: How to be an urban bird’

  2:00 p.m.-Jessica Zielske/The Mountain Lake Conservancy

‘Avifauna & geology of Mountain Lake’

Also scheduled is a not-to-be-missed bird walk prior to the festival with Clyde Kessler, local bird expert with Radbird, an outfitter and touring company that specializes in interacting with local birds. The walk sets off at 9 a.m. from the Radford Public Library, 30 West Main St.

More Rock Castle Gorge on The Blue Ridge Parkway and It is all in the Light...

My Art Work

Dirt Road Near Rock Castle Gorge

Pastel on paper  17"x23"  Original - $782.00

Prints on paper or canvas available at kendall-kessler.artistwebsites.com

I have so many paintings from Rock Castle Gorge that I think I will be blogging about this gorgeous Blue Ridge Parkway attraction for a while.  

Hikers especially love the trails at this site and my husband has actually walked as much as eight miles off the trail up and down the mountain to get photographs of butterflies.

His photographer, Bruce Grimes, has to carry heavy equipment to get good photographs and he often has to lie down on his stomach to get the shot.  I have always admired photographers!  

Good photography is quite an art and a job!

Road to Rocky Knob oil on canvas  8"x10"

Original painting has been sold

Prints on paper or canvas available at kendall-kessler.artistwebsites.com

The actual trail is a loop that is  just short of 11 miles long.

It ranges from 1700 feet to 3572 feet at Rocky Knob.

I am especially fond of this oil painting of a road that leads to Rocky Knob.  It is quite an expressive work!

There are so many interesting trails around this area and the wildflowers in season are stunning!

When I was in school I had a teacher that was fond of country and mountain scenes and he remarked to me one time that He especially liked the kind of yellow/white grass seen along the dirt road in the painting at the top.

Most artists have a main medium and a secondary medium.  My main medium is oil paint but my secondary medium is pastels.

I am especially proud of my American Artist Award for "Near Smithfield Plantation"from famed pastelist Daniel Greene.

Life with the Bird and Word Man

• People often don't like their photograph and with good reason!  The lens is curved and the resulting parallax can make for a picture that looks how a person looks in a curved piece of metal.  No one wants that!
• I pride myself that I can work around the parallax but I have been having a hard time lately with my digital camera.  I think the old 35mm cameras had less perspective distortion.

Anyway, I finally got a decent picture of my husband for the publication The Writing Disorder which will feature his poems this Spring.  The tenebristic light made all the difference!

Clyde Kessler

Rock Castle Gorge on The Beautiful Blue Ridge Parkway and More Poems Published by Clyde Kessler...

My Art

I am pleased that more and more of my prints are being bought by the public!  My main medium is oil paint but I am extremely versatile and even have a photography folder that I am very proud of.

Yesterday two small prints from my I Love the Beach folder went to a great patron in Veneta, Oregon.

Morning Light at Isle of Palms      Prints on paper or canvas and greeting cards available at kendall-kessler.artistwebsites.com

My Feet in the Sand at Isle of Palms     Prints on paper or canvas and greeting cards available at kendall-kessler.artistwebsites.com

                                                                                  

Also, a print of Ridgeland Winter Beauty on a t-shirt went to a great patron in  Thousand Oaks California.

Much of my work can be bought on just about anything on Zazzle!  Here is the address.  www.zazzle/newriverartist

Ridgeland Winter Beauty 8"x10"    original painting price - $170.00

Prints on paper or canvas and greeting cards available at kendall-kessler.artistwebsites.com

  

Life with the Bird and Word Man

Yesterday my husband, Clyde Kessler, found out he published  "Fiddling in a January Thaw" in Contemporary Haibun Online.  It will be published sometime in March.      This is the ninth poem he has published in this magazine.  Yeah Word Man!

Nothing funny out of his mouth today.  Maybe tomorrow!                                 .

Rock Castle Gorge

If I had to pick a favorite locale on the great Blue Ridge Parkway it would be Rock Castle Gorge.  I have done many paintings of this area and my husband has spent so much of his time there that I told him he should have a mail box on Rocky Knob.

Many years ago the chestnut was the basis of the economy in Rock Castle Gorge but a chestnut blight in 1914 ravaged the trees in the United States and by 1919 the American chestnut trees died out in the Rock Castle Community.

At one time there were 30 families but by 1930 there were only 10.

The Blue Ridge Parkway was created through President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Those living in the Rock Castle community had to sell their homes. 

Young men from the community found a steady paycheck working for the Civilian Conservation Corps(CCC) helping to construct the parkway.

Some of my husband's ancestors lived in Rock Castle Gorge before the establishment of the parkway.

Every fall he leads Hawk Migration studies and has spent countless hours studying birds and butterflies there.

I gained this information about Rock Castle Gorge from my husband, Clyde Kessler, and from Hike Back in Time at Rock Castle by Eliza Winston.

Fabulous Fancy Gap on The Blue Ridge Parkway and A Real Hug...

My Artwork

One of my favorite Blue Ridge Parkway sites, Fancy Gap, has been the inspiration for two of my paintings.  Wildflowers Near Fancy Gap was sold to a great patron in Chicago.

Farm Near Fancy Gap is still available. It is quite an effort to ship a 30"x40" oil painting on masonite which is a lot heavier than canvas but I have been doing that for around thirty years.

I have never had an accident or return - just compliments!  This patron wanted to frame it herself so I left off the light-weight metal frame I put my large paintings in.  Most patrons want to have the work professionally framed to suit their tastes.

I didn't have a problem with the packaging but for some reason I must have put in the wrong information on UPS and was given a quote that was much higher than It usually is.  I contacted the patron and she said it was all right but when UPS came the price was much lower.

We were having a hard time with adjusting the price on Paypal so I decided to just include a check for the difference.

Things work out!

Wildflowers at Fancy Gap by Kendall Kessler

ARTIST RETAINS FULL COPYRIGHT OF ARTWORK AND IS PROTECTED BY US AND INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT LAWS

Life with the Bird and Word Man

  

My husband, Clyde Kessler, is always such a great help with my efforts to bring more attention to my artwork.  In my efforts to give more background to my subject matter he is always there with some help.

Yesterday, he was searching for one of his Blue Ridge Parkway books and I came up from behind him and gave him a long hug.  He said that was a real hug.  I asked him what was an unreal hug and he replied it was one that Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory would give.  He has a point there!

A Little History on the Blue Ridge Parkway

The Blue Ridge Parkway is the most visited unit of America's National Park System.  It attracts around twenty million visitors each year.

The Blue Ridge Parkway runs for 469 miles. It mostly is part of the Blue Ridge which is a major mountain chain that is part of the Appalachian Mountains.

It is the longest, narrowest National Park in the world.

The road was begun during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt and was originally called The Appalachian Scenic Highway.

In 1936 it was formally recognized as The Blue Ridge Parkway.

A Little About Fancy Gap

Early roads in the mountains often followed established paths such as creeks, deer paths, and Indian trails.  

The curves were hard on wagons so locals began building their own roads. In the mountains these home engineered roads often crossed at the lowest spots called gaps or up the gentlest slope which is called a spur.

There is a legend about how Fancy Gap got it's name.  Ira Blair Coltrane(1815-1984), a self-made engineer helped his grandfather drive loaded wagons up the steep incline. 

The story is that he saw a better route up the mountains across the valley and remarked that it would make a Fancy Road.

In 1849 the Fancy Gap Turnpike was begun and finished in the 1850's.  Coltrane, as a contractor, built the road from Fancy Gap to the foot of the mountain, making the dream of his youth a reality.

I found this information on a great essay by Ron Hall entitled Heaven is a little closer, Fancy Gap, Virginia.  Ron has a lot more interesting facts about Fancy Gap!

I just added a new Kendall Expression painting!  Check it out and others in my Kendall Expressions folder!