Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Good Day, Sunshine

5x15 inches watercolor

Today was the first day of the week log Beloit plein air event that had sunshine. After a week of heavy rainfall, flooding and wind damage in the area, the sun was out. The wind was still fierce, but as I drove to the park I chanted to myself: You LOVE painting outside. The wind is NO problem. You LIKE talking to interested people. You can DO this. I did, too. Sure there were folks who looked much more painterly with their French easels, big canvases and sun umbrellas, but I got it done today. Even if I was sitting with my legs splayed in the grass with my watercolor paper stapled to a ratty board propped up with a roll of Bounty paper towels.

I like this poem by William Carlos Williams, and I decided to post it even though summer is not over.

    It is a willow when summer is over,
    a willow by the river
    from which no leaf has fallen nor
    bitten by the sun
    turned orange or crimson.
    The leaves cling and grow paler,
    swing and grow paler
    over the swirling waters of the river
    as if loath to let go,
    they are so cool, so drunk with
    the swirl of the wind and of the river--
    oblivious to winter,
    the last to let go and fall
    into the water and on the ground.


7 comments:

mARTa said...

Stopping by to see what you have been up to. What beautiful work!! I throughly enjoyed my visit.

JoAnn said...

Love today's painting, and yesterday's too. They are so loose and free!

Jonn

Unknown said...

Breath taking!!

Peachtreeart said...

This is very beautiful, I love our you cropped your composition.

Anonymous said...

Never saw that WCW poem before--so much more traditionally poetic than I was expecting. Nice! Sherry, has the flooding affected you more directly?

Sherry Pierce Thurner said...

I just got back from a trip to our Ace Hardware, which is near the Rock River - I needed glass for framing. There was a merchandise order form on the counter - bilge equipment, fans, dehumidifiers, cleaning supplied, all on back order. The river is as high as I remember seeing it, and it is rising. Where I was looking the water is a little less than a foot from the top of the retaining wall, further down in Traxler Park the road was closed and flooding was extensive. I live up on a hill, so no difficulty here, though we are saturated.

Teri said...

Chanting to yourself certainl worked! This is beautiful!