silver in gold

late october field

After two days of high winds, much color around us has been swept away.  Also, colors are drying out.  Asters and field plants are silvered:  no more bright purples, no more bright golds.  Still, the field grasses are beautiful, shimmering.

bling

middle october autumn field

Glitter and gold in the fields.  Let it cascade around us.  Let us share it.

busy october

october field sketch

Are we all busier in October than we are in other months?  Is the grass greener in October? or does it shine bright, emerald, because of the clear, piercing light all around and because of all the colors which are not green all around?  (Friends in Taiwan told me the sharp light of Autumn is called the tiger's eye.)

I intended to work more on this little pastel painting.  But when I saw it after a day away, I thought it got to the activity level of the colors all around in the fields here in mid-October, or something.  Something in this sketch resonated a bit:  oh, yes.

I have been dashing to get work done before all the colors are spent.  Leaves have come down, "in showers," Marge said today.  Many trees are bare now.  I saw this chickadee (below) flitting and dashing, hardly placing both feet down.  I know that there is another chickadee sketch here in Ai-jane.  When I have a moment to check, I'll see how the two sketches compare.  Surely last year also, we-- the chickadees and me--were intently flitting, sketching.

autumn chickadee

clamor and hence



a bit of the October fields

There is much clamor in the fields.  Especially with the sunlight's attention upon them, some of the leaves and flowers and grasses are flashing crazy.  They nearly scream almost constantly:  me.    A mere painter, I watch with awe and a bit of atavistic fear.  And I seek out patches in the field that are still brilliant and yet can also temper the excesses around them.

This small pastel painting I did after I returned from a visit and 600 miles of driving.  All along the route, the grasses carried much color and they anchored and carried and neighbored much splendor all around them.  At first I drew mostly the individual grasses/marks and more bright colors all around.  Finished, the field suggests--more than states--its wider/wilder activity,  still colorful.

Ahead, in early November, the fields will be quieter.

color catching

october field

Autumn, jewel-like, can bedazzle at any moment:  asters flash from out of a shadow, goldenrods light up out of the browning grasses, sky-blue becomes bluer beside the gold.  A tree turns crimson between field and sky.  The jewels startle us and lead the fields in jumping.  Autumn is leaping in the fields.

I've tried to get this small painting jumping if not startling.  Maybe your eyes move around in an odd and syncopated way, darting around, their haunches and belly catching and dragging amid the fields and colors.  Do they?