Fall Colors

Just Down the Lane

I was blessed to have grown up in Virginia where we actually had four seasons. Summers were great, but the weather would begin to turn crisp and you knew what was about to happen. I never tired of looking at all those yellows, and oranges and reds that would magically appear on the trees. As a child my mother and father would take us hiking in the fall looking for beaver dams, or up into the Blue Ridge Mountains along Sky Line drive...there never was a prettier sight than all those trees in full flame! Every now and then Louisiana will burst out with a tree here and there full of color and it brings me back to those Fall days as a child seeing those trees in all their glory. Each season has something about it that is special, something different to look forward too. God is good to give us this change!
 
Tried my hand a little bit this weekend with fall trees...I tried and tried, but ended up liking the first painting the best. It did not come out like I had envisioned it. I sort of wanted a more abstract look with blobs of bright colors and trunks. With watercolor you can easily overwork a canvas. With oils you can do this too, but you really can scrape off the paint and begin again, or overpaint a section, not so with watercolor. This medium is not for the faint of heart! Put that paint down and work with it...but just a bit, then leave it alone! Restraint is a better term for it...less is more is a good phrase as well. I know I will return to this subject. Now it is onto sunsets again and the sea for my oils class. He wants rocks too. Let's see if they can look like rocks instead of brown blobs!