The Brandywine Museum.

It was the perfect day on Sunday to roam the galleries of the Brandywine River Museum.

Every once in awhile I need an immersion into the art of the Wyeth family; N.C., Andy, Jamie, and Andy's sisters Carolyn and Henriette.

Andy's father, N.C., was world famous for his colorful and usually action-packed illustrations of the classics. Here is one of my favorites, from "Last Of The Mohicans."

Not far from the museum N.C.'s studio sits on a hill in the woods. Here it is painted by Andy on a winter day.

At heart I'm a sucker for nostalgia, but I don't think it should have a dominate place in a painting.
One of the major reasons I love the works of Andrew Wyeth is because of his very  abstract compositions.
Look at these wonderful shapes.

And although he eventually rejected his earlier more colorful watercolors for seeming too "facile," look how loose and immediate this painting is.

Andy's son Jamie gets a bit too "cute" for me at times, but when he's serious, he does stunning works.

Two of Andy's sisters were also painters. This is an almost surrealistic painting by Carolyn Wyeth.

And here, a lush still life by Henriette.

To go from the sublime to...well, my sketchbook, here is a drawing of a guard, while each of us was having lunch.

Almost exactly one year ago I did this oil, while standing on the banks of the Brandywine near the museum. It was a sunny, but very cold, day.

But the most fun I had yesterday was focusing on this nasty pirate, scaling a log barricade. It's from one of N.C.'s illustrations for "Treasure Island."