Paintings of the Haymarket Museum
The Haymarket Museum is right in the heart of Haymarket, Virginia. Built in 1883, the building has gone through a few different uses before becoming the museum. As one of the iconic buildings of Haymarket, I knew I wanted to paint it for my series of local landmarks and landscapes.
For my first painting I decided on a combination of ink sketch and watercolor painting. You can see the American flag flying proudly off a lamp post out front. The front door of the museum is always decorated with seasonally appropriate wreaths.
The building is a two story structure built of wood. It is white with a nicely contrasting green roof and shutters. The building has a bell tower and if you visit you can go up the stairs and pull the rope to ring the bell.
In my second painting, I wanted to give a more whimsical view of the museum, with gentle clouds floating across the sky.
The museum was built after the town of Haymarket was almost completely burned down by Union troops during the Civil War. The building was originally used as a schoolhouse and the town hall. It was used as a school until around 1900 and then continued to be used as the town hall. The building eventually became the museum in the early 2000s.
At this time, in addition to functioning as the town museum, the building houses the Haymarket Coffee Company. The Haymarket Coffee Company roasts their coffee locally on a regular basis, so it’s a great place to stop if you need to pick up a bag of freshly roasted beans (which they can ground for you to your preference) or a cup of coffee. They can make pretty much any coffee drink you’d like. You can choose from their preset menu or customize your drink however you want. You can even order a Chuck Norris, which is 8 shots of espresso with steamed cream. That’s way more caffeine that I need, so I’ll not be ordering it, but there are customers who do get it. While you’re getting your coffee, you can browse the museum to learn more about our town and ring the school bell. You’re also welcome to hang out inside or out back on patio where there are plenty of tables and chairs. Dogs are welcome as well, and a water bowl is available if needed. The coffee shop is open daily from 7am to 1pm.
In my last painting of the museum, I wanted to show the museum with a bright clear sky contrasting the deep green roof and trim of the building. However, after I finished the painting and was pleased with how it looked, I realized something terrible. On the sign for the building, I had spelled “meuseum” instead of “museum”. How embarrassing!
This is a deeper topic for another day, but the mistake taught a few important lessons:
The first lesson is that mistakes can be corrected. I wanted to make prints out of this painting, and I was able to correct the spelling in photoshop (as well as clean up an area in the white of the building where I had dropped a brush full of green paint). I just probably won’t be selling the original painting.
The second lesson is that you can always start over. If I needed to, I could have gotten a clean piece of paper and painted the building again. It wouldn’t have turned out exactly the same, but it would have turned out good. Maybe it would even turn out better. And every time you have to redo your work, that’s just practice for getting better. As Sarah Cray of Let’s Make Art says, “It’s just a piece of paper.” The worst thing that’s going to happen when you mess up a painting is that you throw it away.
The third lesson, that is obvious but we often forget, is that EVERYBODY makes mistakes. The best artists in the world make mistakes in their art. The smartest people make mistakes. Mistakes happen. We often don’t see the mistakes that others make (while we see all of our own mistakes) but they still happen.
Nobody is perfect and mistakes are ok. That’s how we learn. If you make a mistake in your art or other work, don’t worry. Just learn from it and keep trying!
I also decided to do a couple of paintings of the caboose that is in the parking lot of the museum. I don’t have a lot to say about it other than that it’s a caboose and it’s in the parking lot. Someone gave it to the town at some point. You can go inside it if it’s open (and you can ask someone at the coffee shop to open it for you if it’s closed).
Learn more about the other landscape paintings in this collection: