Leaf Art and Paint Art

Well, the giant white pine that towers over our house from the edge of the nuns property next door has begun dropping a whispering carpet of gold needles on our driveway, and the maples next to the road are finally glowing lemon drop yellow. This afternoon on the way home from my painting fellowship I pulled over to give the baby his pacifier and take off his jacket and Ru spent the entire time dangling from the window, grinning, picking giant bouquets of maple leaves off an overhanging bough outside. We've hit the good times in autumn.

I can't find paraffin in any of the stores around here for some reason but I saw this brilliant idea somewhere to dip all the leaves your kids find on their gathering excursions in liquid wax and then thread them in garlands to hang in the window where the paraffin will make the colors stay long after the glow has faded from the branches. If anyone sees paraffin in Stop and Shop will ya'll let me know? Gosh that sounds like beautiful fun!

I haven't done  a painting update in a good long while so I have more than the usual trove of work to exhibit. I think I'm getting better...slowly but surely. My painting mentors continue to chuckle at me when I start a new piece because apparently I choose ridiculously hard subjects with startling frequency. Heh. If something's worth doing, its worth doing a hard one, I suppose. I'm ambitious if a bit over hopeful. *grin*

Here's a peek at some of my latest work and a little view into our painting group today. All the shots of paintings with no painter at work are mine.

This last picture is the painting I'm working on at the moment. I love the way that I can take a photo I hoped would turn out well but ended up out of focus or something and use it for a painting and make it an entirely serviceable work of art that more aptly captures the scene that I was trying to remember. This is Ru with the first radishes from our garden last spring.