Sixth And Monroe

There’s a classic mansion on the corner of Sixth and Monroe here in Paducah that sits in stately splendor. It belonged to an elderly woman whose interests ran to Civil War era gowns and their preservation. She had quite a collection, I understand. Today, the pillared house stands rather silently in expectation since her passing last year. An elaborate garden with flowers, shrubbery, and statues makes up the entire front yard surrounded by a blue wraught iron fence.

The maple and dogwoods inside the yard are in full color right now. I noticed them earlier in the week and was struck by their overhanging color and deep shadow along the south side of the house, creating a canapy of leaves for the sidewalk underneath. I ventured out today to take the picture before the colors fade. Fall resides there at the house while it awaits other occupants.

Sixth and Monroe

Watercolor on paper

5.5″ X 4.5″

$50

Contact me for purchase

Berries and Acorns

I tend to look down as I walk through woods or along sidewalks. Not at my feet but at the flowers, leaves that have fallen, and for whatever treasures in the way of bugs or things of interest I might find. Last year while walking to the library I saw the tiniest of acorns scattered at my feet. Neat little caps with miniature buds of acorns. I picked one up and was entranced by their perfection and size, especially since the trees they came from were in the category of mighty oaks. I don’t know the specific species of oak but I kept the souvenir anyway.

Yesterday I made a stroll through Lower Town to get some exercise and see what was about. Two blocks away were brilliant orange berries, part of ornamental bushes at the side of someone’s yard. The perfect Fall color combination of scarlet orange and evergreen for the leaves. I pinched a sprig of leaves and one of berries to bring home for my daily painting. The acorn and its twin cap were still safely stored in my desk drawer from last year. Small things that made my day.

Berries and Acorns

Watercolor on paper

5.5″ X 4.5″

$50

Contact me for purchase

Leftover Colors

This is my 50th painting since I started the 100 paintings in 100 days series. I’m hoping to have the rest done before Christmas, with a show planned for December in my studio. I think a lot of the next half of the daily paintings will be something taken from what I see around me, like today’s painting.

Temperatures have dropped here in Western Kentucky and the leaves are just beginning to turn. Our sycamore tree out front is turning burnished gold with mottled green and brown rust spots on the leaves. They blow onto our sidewalk and porch, castoffs as big handkerchiefs. I gathered a few yesterday and went in search of something a bit more saturated in color, and found a few crimson leaves in my neighbor’s yard to go with them. No great detail in this, just the colors of fall splashed across the paper with basic shapes.

We’re hoping to get out of town for the day on Sunday on Dave’s day off. Maybe we’ll go get some sawdust pie at the local diner we found in a town to our northwest. Or maybe take a drive to Land Between the Lakes and do a hike before the weather turns too cold for the winter.

Leftover Colors

Watercolor on paper

4.5″ X 5.5″

Sold

A Different Rose

We’re coming close to the end of the growing season and our participation with the community supported agriculture we’ve done with the Amish families in Marion, KY. It’s still exciting after more than 20 weeks to see what arrives in our box every Tuesday afternoon. This week there were four large sweet potatoes, a bag of a variety of leaf lettuce, a small bunch of radishes both red and white, a red pepper, an onion, and six rosy turnips. I’m not terribly fond of cooked turnips unless they’re in with other things. Actually I prefer them cut in slices or strips and eaten raw. We used to do that when I was growing up, and I remember them as a special treat that had a tangy sweet bite similar to cabbage.

Since they’ve been sitting on our kitchen counter since yesterday afternoon I’ve had plenty of opportunity to look at them. Their brilliant fuschia is glorious, no matter what you think of their taste. So, in honor of that at least, they became my painting off the day today.

A Different Rose

Watercolor on paper

4.5″ X 5.5″

$50

Contact me for purchase

Bison Cool

Seeing bison in preserves like the ones at Land Between the Lakes just east of us makes you wish they still roamed wild. They appear as unlikely visions that you imagine as folklore instead of something alive and breathing. In their natural state, running to the hundreds in wide open spaces must have been spectacular to witness. Sort of like seeing herds of wildebeests in Africa.

But they’re still majestic in their brooding bulk. Their wool hangs in beards around their necks and chins with little dreadlocks as top-notches at the back of their head. When we took these pictures a couple years ago it was a warm Summer day and this fellow was doing the sensible thing. Standing in the only pool of water available. His fellow bison were just beyond munching grass. He eyed us warily as we stopped the car to take a picture of him just along the fence line at the side of the road. So tantilizingly close, and yet so far from here.

Bison Cool

Watercolor on paper

5.5″ X 4.5″

$50

Contact me for purchase

Hidden Wren

Yesterday I painted the companion piece to this one. It’s the same Carolina Wren but taken as he jumped around among the banana leaves and dry stalks looking for bugs. He’s definitely doing that here in this pose. They never stay still long, which makes me wonder how they can see something so small as a bug in such a short period of time.

Hidden Wren

Watercolor on paper

4.5″ X 5.5″

$50

Contact me for purchase

Carolina In Florida

Last summer we had a pair of Carolina Wrens that frequented our flower gardens, especially in back of the house. This year I never saw them. Maybe I just wasn’t alert enough, but I sure did miss them. I even hung a small bird house made especially for wrens but none ever came nor did any other bird use it, for that matter. For a brief moment I thought it might be inhabited by paper wasps but that turned out not to be true.

We have some kind of wrens in San Miguel around our house there, which we see usually early in the morning or at dusk when they make their way around the rocks and our brick fence looking for bugs in the crevices. I’ve even had them perch momentarily on my kitchen windowsill, an act I consider to be of supreme order.

This little guy (and I assume it is a guy) we saw in the tropical foliage in Florida a couple years ago on a visit to Corkscrew Swamp. I’m sure I didn’t hear him, not being reliably able to hear birds with higher pitched voices, but we managed to spot him from his flitting about the big banana tree leaves. I think I’ve made him look a bit like a robin, but tomorrow I plan to do him in another pose, so I have a second chance of making him even more true to life. Even so, I like to think of this Springtime bird as the weather turns to Fall. Something to look forward to at the other end of Winter.

Carolina In Florida

Watercolor on paper

4.5″ X 5.5″

$50

Contact me for purchase

High Tea

Malaysia was such a surprise. We crossed from Singapore via bus into a torrential downpour, as if the heavens had opened up, and then spent two days at the port city of Malacca. From there we journeyed north into the mountains to the Cameron Highlands. The high elevations were a welcome cool that we’d not experienced since reaching southeast Asia several weeks before. It felt like we’d been transported into a glorious hidden realm with lush, shadowy, deep forests and rolling tea fields as far as the eye could see. These are the vast tea plantations established by the English and taken over by the Malaysians. They look like endless meticulously manicured gardens that create patterns across the landscape, providing a verdant palate for play of light and shadow. Dave took picture after picture, but still I think we failed to capture this resplendent sight. And if the visual wasn’t enough the tea was perhaps the best we’ve ever experienced.

Tea and scones and me

High Tea

Watercolor on paper

5.5″ X 4.5″

$50

Contact me for purchase

Heliconias

We lingered a long while in the Singapore Bontanic Garden. It’s hot and extremely humid there but I remember enjoying myself there more than a lot of our wanderings in the heat. There were places of shade, and it was such an oasis of wonder.

This image is of heliconias, one of my favorite exotic flowers, that grow hanging down and form pods in a charming symetrical chain. The intertwined large leaves of luscious green superimposed against lily pads from a small pond give them even more mystery.

Heliconias

Watercolor on paper

4.5″ X 5.5″

$50

Contact me for purchase

Lotus In Relief

My last two posts have been about things up on houses and their surrounding walls. Today I’m back on the ground and have been thinking of Singapore. Maybe it’s the dull darkness of today brought on by the rain storms that makes me dream of sun and heat that enveloped us in the island state of Singapore. Specifically, I remember the botanic gardens with its exotic plants, cool ponds, and meandering paths. We spent half a day there relaxing and exclaiming over the strange new plants we saw.

I felt like doing flowers or something from that experience today so I sought out the photos we’d taken. There among them was a fantastically colored close up of lotus flowers and their pads floating on one of the ponds. The water is an unbelievable purplish blue that causes the lily pads to stand out in stark relief. The white lotus is almost electric as a brilliant beacon among the saturated colors. I closed in even further on it from the original photo and to make it more dominant and the composition simpler. The colors are the thing, and I’m happy to remember Singapore that way.

Lotus In Relief

Watercolor on paper

5.5″ X 4.5″

$50

Contact me for purchase