Forest

Forest - oil on canvas, 12x24 inches

This painting is unusual for me.  I don't paint landscapes very often, since my usual preference is for figurative images.  But lately I find myself playing around with drawings of trees, fields, and water.  Maybe the weather has something to do with it - since I'm not outside as much as I was in the summer and fall.

I fell into a strange rhythm while painting this one.  One day I would like what I had, though still knowing that I wanted to work on the composition, or the range of values, or the simplification of the image.  The next day I'd work, and really dislike the change.  The following day I'd be happier with the changes I made, and the day after that I'd be ready to toss the whole thing out the window.  But eventually, after about a week or a bit more, I liked it well enough.  So I quit.

I think what I need to do now is wire the painting and live with it hanging on a nail in the studio for a while.  Then I'll know better if it's really finished or not.

Sauntering at Carver Roehl

John Muir didn't like the word "hike," and instead preferred the word "saunter."  I suppose sauntering sounds more pleasant than hiking, less like exercise and more like an easy appreciation of nature.  My husband and I sauntered through a local county park this afternoon, and while the colors so far are not brilliant, there is a real feeling of autumn in the air, as there should be on the first day of October.  I took several photos, but I think this one captures the feeling of the place best.  The landscape at Carver Roehl park is varied, some flat, some hilly, and there is a little creek that has carved out limestone outcroppings that are scattered with ferns. 

We didn't realize it, but a local friends group was sponsoring a fall gala, with speakers, picnicking, a petting zoo, and horse-drawn hayrides.  It was charming sauntering the trails, and hearing the sound of the horses' hooves on the road.

Sometimes the only cure for brain fog is a walk in the woods.  I'm glad we went.

October
by Robert Frost

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being begiled.
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if they were all.
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost ---
For the grapes' sake along the wall.

Embracing the Seasons

After a wet summer, it looks like autumn will be dry.  We enjoy taking the convertible out on fall road trips.  These photos were from our overnight to Wausau.  The colors are a bit ahead that far north, but certainly not peak yet.  Still, the journey is the pleasure, not just the destination. We had a nice meal at a supper club, and did a bit of hiking, and took in the Birds in Art show at the Woodson.

More Loose Drippy Trees

acrylic on paper, 12x12 inches

More drippy trees.  This one is much smaller than the previous one, and I am enjoying playing with different color combinations.  

The other thing I've been experimenting with is putting on a finishing coat of cold wax medium, which I apply pretty much as I do when I (rarely) wax the car.  I apply a thin top coat, let it dry, then buff it with a cloth.  The result punches up the colors a bit, and has a nice satin shine.  The only drawback I can see is that I can never paint over the top of the waxy finish.  I think I'm OK with that, though.

Enjoying October

I have always loved October.  It is a relief to be able to return to jeans and flannel shirts.  I like my cool bedroom and morning that doesn't come too soon.  I am happy to ditch the played out summer flowers for asters and mums.  It is often sunny and relatively warm, and the trees turn into bouquets of color.  Oh, and apples.  I can buy fresh Macintosh apples and make apple crisp. 

In October we traditionally drive the convertible up the Mississippi and stay over a night somewhere.  Sometimes its one of the little river towns, but this time we returned to the St. James Hotel in Red Wing, mercifully far enough from railroad tracks to allow for a good night's sleep.  This year, as last, we scored a  couple warm and pretty days, and reveled in Wisconsin back road beauty.

This is also the second year I am leading twilight tours for the Rock County Historical Society, the only ones that I dress up for.  A friend who has a sign business made me a sign as a gift, though he made a "typo" spelling cemetery.  Ah well, people know the tour is on, and the gift of the sign was a sweet thing.  Mama always said I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, and she was right.  People are pouring into the tours, and we get a laugh over the sign.

Now go out and enjoy these days before it gets cold.

A Month of Orange: A Walk in the Woods

I've been busy trying to take more photos of old headstones at Oak Hill cemetery for Find A Grave, and also getting my reading from Frankenstein ready for the RCHS event on Saturday.  And I've slowly been clearing out flower beds, though I hate to pull out anything before the frost actually kills it.  Still, it is a delight to be outdoors.

This afternoon my husband and I drove to Carver-Roehl park to just take a leisurely walk, listen to the squirrels making a racket in the dry leaves, the woodpeckers in the trees.  Winter will come, soon enough.

A Month of Orange: Indian Summer

We are having a few days of Indian summer, warm days following the first killing frost of the season.  I still cannot bring myself to pull up all the annual plants that are still blooming, even though I know I should take advantage of the mild days before cold comes again.  I have been making sure to get outside for a while each day, even with my script to prepare for the Halloween event at the Tallman house this weekend - a 15 minute reading from Frankenstein.  That will be done - but weather like this cannot last much longer.

I couldn't post yesterday because we were in Madison with out long-time friends watching the Badger football game from the warmth and comfort of a State street bar.  We weren't sure if this was the 39th or 40th year of watching a Badger game together, but we were possibly the oldest people in the eating and drinking establishment.

Finding orange is getting a little harder, especially if I want to find a photo that is not either a pumpkin or a flaming orange maple tree.  Still, nothing wrong with either of those.

This is a giant pumpkin from the Peck farm stand between Spring Green and Madison. Love the giant pumpkin.  There used to be one nearer, perched on top of a local silo, but storms blew it down  few years ago, smashed it to smithereens - and it has never been replaced.

A Month of Orange: Pink Pumpkins

We saw these "pink" pumpkins at a farm stand on Monday - to me they look more peach than pink, but hey! 

I've been busy the last couple days with my twilight cemetery tours - Chill at Oak Hill.  I dressed up in black Victorian garb and led 40-50 people each evening through the older parts of our historic cemetery, telling some of the creepier stories I know -  a terrible well digging accident, a murder/suicide, a lynching, three different clairvoyants, and a couple of supposed hauntings.  Actually it was fun for me, and I was excited by how interested people seemed. I wish I had a photo of the beautiful sunset each night, but I was too busy to worry about finished before sunset to worry about taking pictures.

A Month of Orange: Wisconsin Hillsides

This is another photo from our weekend jaunt along the Mississippi River, and the driftless areas of western Wisconsin.  What is there to say that isn't already clear here?  We live in a state blessed with low key beauty which seems to peak on warm sunny days in October.  It is then that our trees, every bit as pretty as those in places like New England, change daily in shades of gold, russet, and flaming red, set off by fields alternating green and gold.

It's hard to see scenes like this, spotted from a wayside park on a county road, unless a person decides to abandon the four lane highways, and slow down.  Of course we have the luxury of being retired, and no longer in much of a hurry.

Fall Song

Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries – - -roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time’s measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay – - – how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.

- Mary Oliver

A Month of Orange: Great River Road

We have a personal tradition of every autumn heading out, in the convertible if weather allows, and driving much of the Great River Road along the Mississippi River - Wisconsin's West Coast.  Sunday was unseasonably warm and summer-like, so we filled up the cat bowl, threw some clothes in a gym bag, and took off.

 Our first stop was the Harbor View Cafe in Pepin - best known as the childhood home of Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Pepin a a very small town right on Lake Pepin, which was beautiful Sunday, filled with sailboats.  We didn't make it to Pepin until after one in the afternoon, but we still had a wait, so popular is this eatery.  I started with butternut squash soup, delicately seasoned with lime and cumin, and very good indeed.  The main course was fine too, though not orange, so not pictured here.  It was risotto balls filled with melted cheese with a side of roasted vegetables.  Too bad we live so far away from The Harbor View.

We didn't have any idea of how crowded the highways and little towns would be on Sunday.  Apparently everyone with either a convertible or a motorcycle was out, enjoying the blue skies and warm temperatures. It was something of a shock, although everyone was so happy that it was hard to even object to the roar of the Harleys.

After spending the night in Trempealeau, we headed to Lacrosse for some views from Granddad's Bluff.  I had seen the summer view several times, but never the colors of autumn.

After that we cut back across the state, sticking to the small county roads that twist through the hills and coulees of the driftless area of western Wisconsin. 

Our trip home took us to Peck's Farm Market near Spring Green, where I indulged in some time at the petting zoo (I have a weakness for the white deer and the goats), bought some apple butter for morning toast, and gawked at the pumpkins and squash.

It was a fine little jaunt.  Perfect, pretty much, with lots of shades of orange to discover.

A Month of Orange: Fresh Farmers Market Carrots

Is there anything as fine as really fresh vegetables from a local farmers market?  These sweet beauties caught my eye on Saturday. Those odd looking greenish brown items on the left are ground cherries, which also are quite nice, though not so versatile as the carrots.

I'm feeling silly tonight - thought I'd share a line from the late great Shel Silverstein:

What did the carrot say to the wheat? Lettuce rest, I'm feeling beet. 

A Month of Orange: Pumpkin Patch Painting

I have gotten out of the habit of daily painting the past month or so.  This time of year I want to be outside as much as possible, knowing that cold weather is on the way.

 

Pumpkin Patch, 5x7 inches, oil on paper

Habits, including good ones, can fade.  Since I prefer to keep my painting habit, I sat down a few days ago with a small scrap of mat board and did this little study of some pumpkins.  I put rather a lot of color in the acrylic under painting, and tried to leave a bit showing when I added the oil paint.

It isn't a masterpiece, but the colors are cheerful, and it fits the season.  It's going to the gallery today.

A Month of Orange: Road Trip

Sometimes we take out our convertible for a drive on the back roads.  That's what we did yesterday afternoon.  Actual designated Rustic Roads are nice, but lots of ordinary rural roads are long on beauty and short on aggressive traffic.

I took this photo through the windshield of the car.  Do those field of picked corn count as orange?

How about this not-so-rustic roadside farm stand?

We both enjoy taking the Colsac III ferry at Merrimac.  It's free, and a grand way to see the Wisconsin River.  The life preserver is orange - and so is the trim on the railings.

We ended up in the town of Roxbury, at a supper club called the Dorf Haus Supper Club.  I suspect we were the only people there who didn't know everyone else.  The bartender made a fine old fashioned (a must for Wisconsin supper clubs), and the German fare was altogether satisfying.  I liked their decorated entrance, too.

A Month of Orange: Silk Wreath

What a joy it is to be able to be outside this time of year!  Today skies were blue, the weather was moderate, and the trees are starting to turn just a bit.

My orange for today is an old silk wreath I hang inside on a door with colored glass.  I like Halloween, but I tend to put out decorations that are just seasonal, not much that is meant specifically for a holiday.  That's not counting my plastic light up pumpkin, of which I am unreasonably fond.

Our house is full of harvest gold.  When we moved in in 1990 I was wild to get rid of it, but after a while I just gave up and embraced it.  At least this time of year the old fashioned color looks good - or at least appropriate. 

A Month of Orange: Painting at the Neighbor's Place

Some folks just have a sense of how to decorate outdoors.  Me, not so much. I plant, and sometimes I water or weed, but I don't decorate.

Down the street and around the corner neighbor is a retired art teacher, and it shows in her back garden.  About a month ago she showed up at my door and invited me to come paint or draw at her place.  Even though I am something of a loner, I said I would, and I showed up with a sketchbook. I did draw - nothing to write home about, but I also took some reference photos.  This delightful woman has all sorts of potted plants, bird baths, feeders, sculptures, and so on.  I liked the red here in the chicken and the terra cotta pots.

Close enough to orange for me.

A Month of Orange: Impatiens

Now that it is flannel shirt weather, the impatiens that drooped during hot weather have perked up.  They'll look good until they get zapped by a hard frost.  The older I get the more difficult it is for me to maintain long beds of flowers, so I've taken taken to scattering around large plastic pots of the shade loving flowers in my garden.  An added benefit is that if frost is forecast early in the fall, I can drag the pot into the garage over night and keep the color going a little longer.

Sometimes less is more.

The Peace of Wild Things
By Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

A Month of Orange: Mums

The weather is cooling down, and some of the annual flowers have already taken a one way trip to the compost heap.  Cool nights and damp weather agrees with the garden mums and the pansies that have stepped up to take the place of the summer exhausted plants.  I like this cobalt blue pottery planter, but discovered that any old plastic pot can show a pop of color with just some hardware store spray paint.  The blue pot on the left is an example.

Challenging Myself - A Month of Orange

I decided that I need a distraction from distressing national and local news stories, worries about a sick beloved kitty, guilt over neglecting exercise and not doing artwork.  So it occurred to me to take on a little challenge, something positive. 

The colors in our yard are gradually changing, and I began putting a few autumn decorations out, and many of them feature some shade of chrome yellow, or orange.  I will keep an eye open for those colors, photograph them, and share them here.  Maybe I can find some good quotes or poems to go along.

This photo is of a black eyed Susan vine.  It's an annual, planted to replace the honeysuckle vine that finally reached the end of its days.  For weeks I thought the seeds were duds, didn't sprout, but then a couple weeks ago I checked the trellis on the south side of the house and there they were.  ll that was needed was patience.

Nothing Gold Can Stay
Robert Frost, 1874 - 1963

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Summer is Over

This week in southern Wisconsin has been glorious - blue skies, temperatures in the 70's, low humidity, few bugs.  These are the sort of days that when I was teaching, inside a cement block room all day, I wanted more than anything to be outdoors.  I appreciate my freedom to come and go, to paint my front door, plant a pretty mum, photograph at the cemetery, take a top down ride on a country road.

But, summer was good too.  I backed away from entering my art in many shows.  I did enter two WRAP (Wisconsin Regional Art Program) shows, and came away with mixed feelings.  I enjoyed both presenter/judges - each as very accomplished and enthusiastic.  But neither struck me as being a very articulate judge.  I can accept differences in taste and opinion, but I want whoever is judging the show to present clear criteria for what makes one piece better than another.  Simply saying "I liked it" isn't enough, and neither is the perennial lament that the show was difficult to judge.  Sure it is.  But the judge's job is to have, and to apply, reasonable criteria and explain it to the people did the work, and paid for the privilege to show it and have it judged.  For the judge to admit they know little about sculpture, or photography, or abstraction, and then go on to judge anyway is a disservice to everyone.  Maybe there can be two people at these events, a presenter and a different person as a judge. I don't know.

I went to fewer Monday evening figure drawing sessions than in previous years, mostly because through much of the summer it seemed that Mondays evenings were stormy.  The studio is about twenty miles away, and sessions are in the evening, so if the weather is bad I generally just stay home.  That said, I went to about four sessions, and did some drawing that I enjoyed.  The last one I attended was a month ago, and I only took out the sketches to spray fix this morning.  I'm always surprised by them, when they've been put away for a while, and usually like them better after that breathing time passes.

 This weekend is the State WRAP event in Madison.  My painting didn't win any special award, though my little artist trading card sized painting was chosen to be included in a calendar, and sold, which was nice.  I look forward to the social event on Friday evening and the speaker on Saturday.  It's humbling to see how much good work non-professional artists around the state are doing.