Maintenance Machines

There's a road off Leesburg Pike near Falls Church which I have frequented for years because it is where the neighborhood recycling bins are. This is an industrial area and it abounds in interesting things to draw. I've drawn most of the buildings, along with the iconic "Sheet Metal Cowboy" and the historic "Home Paramount Exterminators." But after I dropped the recycling into the bin today, I drew another sight on the street, the shed housing Falls Church maintenance machines. This is where they keep snowplow trucks and earth movers and diggers. I love this sort of machine and I've done many drawings of them. There they sit in the quiet September sun, awaiting the...arggh...hard work of....winter....Note the rainwater collection gutters leading into the tank at the side of the shed.

Pen on sketchbook paper, about 11" x 7".

Industrial Summer

I take my bottles and papers to a recycling center in a small industrial area of Falls Church, down a street called "Gordon Road." Throughout the years I have done lots of drawings of the business and utility buildings on this road. There is a concrete plant, Falls Church road maintenance machines and sheds, Dixie Sheet Metal with their ten-foot-tall sheet metal cowboy, and "Home Paramount" exterminators. All of these have gotten attention from me in drawing or photography.

I love small industrial areas, especially in the summer, where they rest, dusty and inactive in the sun, while cicadas provide natural machine noise in the background.