Feels like Fall!

(c) Lesley Powell 2014

We are finally getting a real taste of fall! I was in rural Virginia recently, just on the cusp of fall, and took advantage of the perfect temperatures to paint outdoors. I was delighted to drive down a familiar road and see
that the field alongside it had been mowed, and that hay bales were scattered about, just waiting to be taken in for the winter. Better yet, there was a cemetery just across the road that provided a perfect, quiet place to stand and paint. I painted at that location two different times, and you can see the results above and below.

"Almost Fall"
12 x 9, oil on linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2014

I also scouted out a cluster of farmhouse buildings on a country road. They were positively sparkling in the early morning sun, and were just begging to be painted. I was worried about the composition, fearing that the road curving off to the right might draw your eye completely  off the canvas, so that you would not even look at the farmhouse buildings. But thanks to the bright white facades of the buildings, and the long shadows of the trees across the road and fields, the composition manages to hold your eye on the canvas.

"Fresh Farm Morning"
8 x 12, oil on linen
(c) Lesley Powell 2014

I will close with a quote from one of my favorite writers, which seems very a propos: 

"...Works of art have about them the quality of a reminder. 

They fix that which is fugitive. 

The cooling shadow of an oak

 [or]

the golden-brown tint of leaves in the early days of autumn..." 

(Alain de Botton, "Our Landscape: Paint it or Lose It", 2009).