Changing Seasons

By the end of October in a lot of the country the trees are either bare or glowing with varied color. The air has gotten chilly and the sun goes down too soon. Autumnal days of warm sun and cold, leaf-strewn wind warn us that before long everything in Iowa will freeze solid. The seasons are changing. This year, my plan is to spend some time outdoors with my new oil setup. Meantime here are some watercolors and casein work from years past.

Hoff, "Fall Visitor," casein on board, 11x14

In early November about three or four years ago the woods on the opposite bank of Druid Hill Creek had begun changing to all sorts of red-oranges and yellows, as natives will do. No bright red bushes or glowing yellow vines like those you see in cultivated gardens. And there was still a lot of green and brown in the mix. As I studied the trees a doe stepped out into the prostrate yellow grasses. I sketched her there and later made this medium-size casein painting. The great thing about casein besides its rapid drying is its opacity. Using casein takes practice, but outdoors it's very useful.

Hoff, "Burning Bush," watercolor, about 5x11

The next picture is a watercolor sketch of a scene about a block or so from my home studio, done one October afternoon last year. The trees and shrubbery in landscaped gardens often provide big splashes of color, which was my interest here. The red euonymus or "burning bush" was an almost-glowing red in the slanting autumnal sun and a small maple made another bonfire of color. Like many of my watercolors, this began as a more-or-less careful and more-or-less accurate graphite drawing. After that I added patches of color, strengthened the drawing with ink and then reinforce colors as needed. Also important to this little painting is de-emphasizing the background by softening the majority of the edges behind the centers of interest.

Here  is another watercolor and ink painting from last year. This one is actually from November and shows a bright yellow tree across the creek from my studio. The sun was lighting this little sapling like a spotlight, and the bright value of the yellow foliage was irresistible. This particular painting is in the same little sketchbook as the neighborhood image above. Like almost all of my watercolor work, this began in graphite and then progressed through color to ink to reinforcement of specific areas of color.

Autumn is a busy time if you're at all interested in landscape; more so if you want to paint outdoors. Unless you're an exceptionally hardy individual, painting outdoors once the ground is frozen solid and so is the precipitation becomes unpleasant. It's important to get in as much time as you can before that awful time. Besides, the colors are magnetic.

I'll be doing some work like this in the next two or three weeks.