and no one wants them for lunch. after several days of working with fugitive subjects, this one remained inert while i sat and tried to capture its colors. when i was done, i tossed it back into the pond. it disappeared beneath the surface with a satisfying plop. the movement of winter ice will drag it along the shore and deposit it on one someone else’s beach next spring. who will pick it up? who will look at it with wonder?
this is the very last flower this plant will produce this year. i had to work quickly – not my preference – but the blossom was already beginning to curl into itself and the colors were fading right before my eyes.
the six-inch Sungold seedlings i planted in spring are now taller than i am. the green clusters of fruit ripen and turn orange-red. in six weeks the plants will stop producing, turn yellow, and i will pull them up to feed the compost pile.
the subject of this morning’s color exploration became lunch!
awareness of impermanence is one of my companions. as light changes throughout the day, my perception of color changes as well. what i see now will look different later.
so i sit and observe, sit and observe, at peace with the knowledge that i myself am temporary in this wild universe of unending movement.
the humble geranium leads me into a meditative state. from twenty feet away all i can see is red and green, but when i take a clipping and sit down with my tools, another world reveals itself. as walt whitman wrote, “i am large, i contain multitudes.”
i do not hurry through the process of seeing the color of the flower stem, the leaf petiole, the curled bud, the open blossom. i look. i breathe. i look some more. i turn over the leaf, the blossom. more new colors. the business of being in the world can wait a few minutes more. i am filled with gratitude.
the magnifying glass is a tool i reach for every day when practicing the peaceful work of discovering color. it draws me deeper into the observed subject and lets me see what is not visible to my elderly eyes without magnification.
i had to wait for a hummingbird to finish her visit to this sprig of phlox before snipping it. for me, waiting is an opportunity to be present with what is at the moment.
poplar trees always have something to say, even with barely a breeze stirring. this leaf landed at my feet and reminded me that summer is short in the woods of Maine.
when birch trees shed their bark, they are making room for new growth. I found this specimen on a day last week when i decided to make a change in my life that required me to let go of something that i had outgrown. already i am feeling the benefits – my internal dialogue has quieted down and i find myself breathing easier.
i began making my notebook of palettes from nature as a way to focus on the beauty and color harmony of the world around me. using the colors found in common objects practically guarantees that whatever i choose to paint will have harmony. the colors found in birch bark, for example, could be put to use to create a peaceful interior scene.
when winter arrives and covers my world with mountains of snow, i can revisit these color exercises and remember a beautiful day in summer when something as simple as birch bark inspired me to shed an old skin and embark on a new path.
today’s exercise in color discovery is to mix and document the palette found in rocks that my husband and i pulled out of the pond yesterday afternoon. the water was so calm that we could clearly see the schools of minnows swimming in the shallows as well as several stones of interest.
i admit that i haven’t learned how to identify rocks. so this morning, over coffee on the deck, i asked my beloved what we had picked up. “Quartz,” he said. “Quartz,” i repeated. “Quartz!” honked the goose in front of our camp. made me laugh out loud.
Walking on Paint 