This week’s art is inspired by a photo I took out of a parking building on Court Street in Charleston, probably about sixteen or seventeen years ago. It shows both the original Kanawha County Courthouse, and the newer Judicial Annex (plus a truck that I’ll probably leave out when I do a full-size painting of this-or maybe not).

This is a color rough done on illustration board using acryllcs, and for some reason I must’ve put more effort into this than I usually do on a rough, because I think it looks pretty good.

I applied some of the techniques I’ve learned studying Hopper, to an image that is not remotely close to his style in terms of composition. To be honest, this was my main goal in studying Hopper so much. I wanted to take his approach to light and shadow and apply it to more surreal ideas and composition.

Composition-wise, this is closer to the 1966 Batman TV show.

I came across the original photo a couple of weeks ago while sorting out old files, and decided to take a shot at transferring this to paint, since I can’t remember the last time I painted an image based on my hometown of Charleston instead of almost any other city I’ve visited in the last decade.

If you want to see this image larger, click HERE.

Meanwhile, over in radioland, Monday beginning at 2 PM on The AIR,  we bring you a new episode of Psychedelic Shack, and then at 3 PM we do the same with Herman Linte’s weekly showcase of the Progressive Rock of the past half-century, Prognosis.  You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on the embedded radio player elsewhere on this page.

At 2 PM, Nigel Pye brings us a Valentine-ish episode of Psychedelic Shack, with his usual mix of great psychedelic rock. For reasons unrevealed to me, every other song this week has the word “Freedom” in the title. Check out the playlist…

Psychedelic Shack 109

Syd Barrett “No Man’s Land”
Wizard “Freedom”
The Dream Machine “The First Bird”
Blue Cheer “Saturday Freedom”
Vanilla Fudge “Some Velvet Morning”
Ancient Grease “Freedom Train”
Deep Purple “Until Tomorrow”
Uriah Heap “Sweet Freedom”
Gary Brooker & Tribute Ensemble “A Whiter Shade of Pale”
Jimi Hendrix “Freedom”

Psychedelic Shack can be heard every Monday at 2 PM, with replays Tuesday at 9 AM, Wednesday at 10 PM, Friday at 1 PM,  and Saturday at 9 AM.

At 3 PM, Herman Linte brings you another two-hour mixtape of proggy live recordings on Prognosis…

Prognosis 136

Steven Wilson “Objects Outlive Us”
YES ” Ritual (Nous Sommes Du Soleil)”
Nektar “1-2-3-4”
Jan Akkerman “Spiritual Privacy”
Jethro Tull “Locomotive Breath”
Big Big Train “Beneath the Masts”
Peter Gabriel “The Rhythm of the Heat”
Renaissance “Mother Russia”
John Wetton “Only Time Will Tell”

You can hear Prognosis on The AIR Monday at 3 PM, with replays Tuesday at 7 AM, Wednesday at 8 PM, Thursday at Noon, and Saturday at 10 AM.

Tonight at 9 PM we bring you our Monday night line-up featuring two hours each of Curtain Call and Beatles Blast, plus six hours overnight with an assortment of our programming from Haversham Recording Institute. The Haversham stuff starts at 1 AM and tonight it’s a six mind-expanding editions of Psychedelic Shack.