Sunday, February 8, 2009

February Thaw


graphite and colored pencil, from an old sketchbook

The good news here in southern Wisconsin is that the temperatures have risen above freezing the past two days, and it looks like today will be a nice day also.  The rotten old snowbanks are black with road grit, but that same dark color is hastening their melting.  We live on a hill, so rivulets of snow-melt rush down Atwood Avenue.  I drove to East Troy yesterday to meet my sister-in-law and plan a May train trip to Washington state.  All along the way the traffic sent up showers, and I had to depend upon the windshield wipers to see, though the sun was shining brightly. Today I got the storm window in my studio open and shooke out my dust mop.  For months it has been frozen shut.

No new art to show.  I've been doing a little personal journaling, nothing interesting to anybody else.  A fair sized watercolor on Yupo sits nearly done, but not finished.  Ditto for a colored pencil piece.  Fiddle-dee-dee, I'll worry tomorrow.

Rarity
by Michael Belongie, the 2009 Wisconsin Poets Calendar

The ordinary is rarer
than we think, as I walk
in early January thaw, thirty
degrees warmer than norm.

Greened grass reappears
from sand-smudged snow;
the melting invigorates
birds, alighting to feeders.

Stoic snowman melts;
his head eroding as
stick arm tilts down, and
ground absorbs this thaw.

4 comments:

winna said...

EXCELLENT tree study---you are very talanted and I'll look for your posts! I commented on the barn photo below, too.

Teri said...

This tree is a beauty. You all in Wisconsin are ready for spring!!

Karen Blados said...

WOW! That's just spectacular!

Margaret Ann said...

WoooWeee...This is familiar as a Moo to me! Nice seeing the entire piece...I love that little poem.