near Suttons Bay, August 1

near Petoskey, July 31

The same field flowers are in these views, seen a day apart.  One field has color in the field flowers; the other field's grasses and flowers are already quite dried out, seeds and seed heads much more predominant than flowers.  Suttons Bay is in a protected bay of Lake Michigan.  Petoskey is farther north and the bay there is more open to weather from the west over Lake Michigan.  Diane told me that Suttons Bay just didn't get much rain this summer; the rain has passed over and passed to the north often.

The top painting here is the same field as the field in the previous post, three weeks later.  I was leaving the hill and the small house and shed caught my eye, almost engulfed by the fields.  Of course the house is important here, centered; still, the fields provide its stage, its display.

Autumn Gold

Here is gold in the early November treeline.
Below is gold in the fields, last year, in late October.  See also ClamorandSense .

And here, below, the Autumn landscape's gold expands, becomes light.

gold and silver

late October field

This small painting started with much drawing and detail.  Color grew.

I used several fine sprays of fixative between layers.  The fixative darkens the color just a bit and it allows me to add more pigment, more color.

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?

away from green

 middle  August  field 

click on sketch to enlarge

Field colors are leaving green. Each day shows more and more spent, drying, browning stalks and flower heads that are going to seed. There are blooms still and even some new blooms. Goldenrod is moving from green to gold.  Joe Pye weed is becoming less carmine, dustier, dustier.  Lemon-yellow blooms of late-year primroses bob, tall in the breezes.  Queen Anne's lace is curling up everywhere, dunn-green, almost brown, almost ashy. But, still in the fields, also, some Queen Anne's lace is startlingly white, lacey, crisp.  Around the blooms the greens are changing, frosting with mildew from humidity of the days and the nights' coolness or simply giving up, no more chlorophyll coming through: too much sun finally and night hours that are advancing.

goldenrod & primrose in the field

In these small paintings, I have the autumn colors underneath and starting to appear above the greens.

autumn fields

queen anne's lace & tickseed in field

liatris & coneflowers in field

sweet peas, spotted knapweed & bee balm in field

We have quite a few colorful characters in the fields nowadays.  They have wonderful names:  Queen Anne's lace, Spotted Knapweed,  Tickseed, Coneflowers, Sweet Peas, Black-eyed Susans, Bee Balm, Goatsbeard, Bladder Campion, Bouncing Bet, Smartweed, Curly Dock.  And of course there are the grasses, turning from green to all kinds of russet reds and siennas.  Dried seedheads that have turned brown and dull brown can yet erupt from their color-stillness whenever a goldfinch or purple finch or hummingbird alights upon them.

The small paintings are mostly pastel, on a printmaking paper.  Each has quite a few marks and so a good amount of layering, which, still, only translates a bit of the multifarious field activities.