Every Leaf

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;

Lengthen night and shorten day;

Every leaf speaks bliss to me

Fluttering from the autumn tree.

…..

– Emily Bronte

I’ve always loved this poem. Particularly the line “Every leaf speaks bliss to me”…. And they do. As an artist who does a lot of looking-at-nature, leaves fascinate me and seem to me to be works of art unto themselves.

These leaves, from my ornamental cherry tree in the front yard, are stunning…luminous. I picked them up off the sidewalk as I approached my front stairs the other day.

In the background is a lovely scarf I bought from Maiwa Handprints on Granville Island. It has   three layers of feather light wool, interwoven to connect them together, in many gorgeous warm shades. It’s a work of art too.

William Blake said, in his ode “To Autumn”: “pass not, but sit…. Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers”….. Yes, the lusty song of autumn, the sumptuousness of colour, of maturation, fullness, richness. It’s been a delight.

Knock Knock

Painting the front door requires some planning. You have to leave the door open, a bit, for a long time! I’ve had the paint now for weeks. I’ve been so busy working long hours with crazy deadlines. I haven’t been around much. And, inevitably, after enjoying a three day retreat, I crashed. So I’m now sick with a cold….I’ve been lying on the couch this weekend and have exhausted my supply of Netflix “to watch” shows…

I thought this might be a good day to paint the front door. It’s warm and sunny, I’m not going anywhere and the painting part only took 20 minutes. The excitement of doing a small task will be therapeutic. The drying time will take all day…I can rest.

But let me go back to the beginning. The poor old door has been white for 10 years…I always hoped to put some colour on it. The house got painted this year, and a new roof put on…it was time!

So how does one go about choosing an accent colour? I do look at houses and make notes about what seems to catch my eye when I’m out for a walk. There’s also context: it does matter what color your neighbours already have, when making your choice. And, of course, what will go with your exterior house colour… and what will it look like when the door is open into your interior?

I landed on red or yellow, to go with my light gray house that has white trim. I thought it would be a nice pop of colour and contrast well.

Here’s how I usually go about making a decision – at my place – or at my clients’ places.

1) Since I’ve narrowed it down to red or yellow, I go through the paint chip box and find many, many chips of those two shade families. I don’t want the red to look “pink” at all, so I’m sticking to rusty reds.

2) I don’t “narrow down” at this point, because I find the various paint chips will look different when viewed in place. So this is the next step: tape them on the wall or wherever they will go and view them there… All of them.

3) Now start to narrow down, to a half dozen or a few candidates. Live with these for a while. Look at them during the day, and in the fading evening light, or at night with the porch light on. I walked out to the street to see what they looked like from there. And another time I drove home and parked out front and glanced up to see what they “felt” like after not seeing them for a while. This will sometimes change your mind.

4) Then narrow down to the finalists. I was torn between the red and the yellow…I know the rusty red would look better inside, in the living room…but I know reds do fade in the sunlight, and I thought that would mean the colour wouldn’t stay as sharp for as long on my south facing porch. Plus, I had some fabulous Black Eyed Susans in some pots – so yellow it was!

I’m happy with my happy coloured door. I know it will look bright and warm in the grey wet months later this year, and it will inspire my planting next spring too.

Six Flowers

I’ve been gathering ideas for the next artwork series. I’ve always loved flowers, leaves, stones, skies – any bit of natural design that I come in contact with. I also love getting flowers and having flowers on the kitchen island. I marvel at their beauty and complexity and symmetry; the layers and patterns/arrangements of their petals and components. Each one is a masterpiece, really.

So I’m thinking of some large-ish canvases, maybe 36” square, and want to explore their “close-ups”. I love to work with colour and layers of tissue and other art papers. I think these will lend themselves well to that. I have the canvases. Time to get into the studio.

Stay tuned!