On being an island...

Sometimes I feel as though I've been enisled- isolated upon an island in a foreign land. I am eagerly anticipating a planned drive north in a few weeks- to visit friends, family and beloved places left behind. Over the weekend, my thoughts were of the crisp snap of fall biting into my cheeks, and the splendid gold, russet and burgundy gowns donned by the deciduous trees of those places that I can no longer call mine.

I painted this scene of an Indian summer morning, mingling in my mind and on canvas the sights of past and present and injecting an island right smack in the center of the viewer's eye path. That would be me- an island caught on the Florida Intracoastal, when I'd much rather be on the Chesapeake. This painting took a couple days to paint, since it's 12 by 16, so I cannot offer it as a painting a day miniature. However, it made me happy to paint this scene, and tomorrow I shall return to my smaller painting-a-day series. I've included this beautiful poem by Ellen Allenton below, because the first few paragraphs were so descriptive and it seemed to fit the painting.

"Indian Summer Morning", oil on masonite, 12 by 16

Indian Summer

Again the leaves come fluttering down,
Slowly, silently, one by one__
Scarlet, and crimson, and gold, and brown,__
Willing to fall, for their work is done.

And once again comes the dreamy haze,
Draping the hills with its filmy blue,
And veiling the sun, whose tender rays
With mellowed light come shimmering
through.

Softly it rests on the sleeping lake
This filmy veil__and the distant shore,
Fringed with tangles of bush and brake,
Shows a dim blue line and nothing more.

The winds are asleep, save now and then
Some wandering breeze comes stealing by,
Softly rises, then sinks again,
And dies away like an infant's sigh.

You feel the spell of these dreamy days
I know__for your heart is in tune with
mine.
You love the stillness, the tender haze;
I know for your thoughts with my own
entwine.

But this dreamy calm, this solemn hush,
The sleeping winds, and the mellow glow,
Only foretell the tempest's rush,
The icy blast, and the whirling snow.

We__you and I must bow to the frost,
When our locks are white with its hoary
kiss;
Our last rose scattered, its petals lost;
May our Indian Summer be calm__like this.
__Ellen P. Allerton.

Indian Summer Art, Chesapeake Bay Art , Daily Painting, A Painting a Day, Collectors