Today was warm, damp, and cloudy, with a rich color show in the maple, cherry, and sassafras trees, as well as the virginia creeper vines and the winged sumacs. I settled at the edge of the pipeline, got out my journal and was looking around for something to draw, when a gust of wind whooshed past. It stripped leaves from the maple trees behind me and twirled them in the air like confetti. Some leaves danced and whirled in spirals like helicopters, some sashayed back and forth as if they were post-it notes dropped from the small plane that just buzzed over. Others swung wild and looped back up, flying even higher into the air! They eventually landed around me with a soft click, some on my page.
Field crickets trilled from the grass, a red-bellied woodpecker chirred from a pine he was working. Daisy got interested in digging a hole right next to me....scratch, scratch, scratch....PAUSE, shift... scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch.... pause, shift... the clay soil, damp from yesterday's rain, gave way easily to her claws. Sniff, sniff. Pause. Scratch, scratch, scratch. A bug landed on my knee, so I quickly sketched it. I didn't recognize it, but once home I looked it up and found that it is a seed bug - a long-necked one, no less.
After sketching the leaves, I brought them home so I could paint them.
3 comments:
What a lovely description.
Loved your take on the leaves!
I am revisiting the leaves. I may need them for myself.
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