autumn colors | reverse threading

neither orange nor red are my favorite colors. but as i glance down nearby, i see two pencils – one a red mechanical pencil and one an orange colored pencil. they are the closest to me and, because i am a pencil person, i’ve been using them for days.

i remember many years ago, my son mentioned that some day he would like a montblanc pen. it’s pretty funny how a little time changes things. now, i’m quite sure, he would not care to have a montblanc; as a matter of fact, i’d bet he wouldn’t care about any brand of pen – even a bic for that matter – as he rarely writes down anything on paper. it is a generation – now grown-up – sans the need of paper, sans the need of pencils, sans the need of fancy-pens.

i’m not sure how i could function without pencils or pens. or, for that matter, notebooks and pads. i am a lover of paper and all things analog, while at the same time also loving the digital world and its conveniences. (take this blog, for instance.)

i have a box of fifty colored pencils that is brand new. it was a gift, along with an adult coloring book – if you haven’t tried this activity, don’t knock it. it’s zen-like coloring pages. i haven’t yet used these new pencils because i have older pencils and didn’t want to use up the new sharp points. ahh, i am my mother’s daughter.

the other day i took out the new tin of pencils and just gazed at the array of color – all beautifully laid out in a spectrum. i suddenly realized that it might be time to try them out. because after taking this photograph of this amazingly beautiful bush out on the trail, i could see that crayola wasn’t going to touch the nuances of staghorn sumac orange and red and yellow. i could see that it would be impossible to shade all the variations – rich – prayer flags burning a place into my memory. i could see that maybe fifty won’t be enough. there’s a set of 72, of 174, of 220, even 520 – the montblanc of colored pencils.

and i could see – gazing at this sheer beauty – i guess i like orange and red a little more than i thought. there’s more to them than meets the eye.

where does nature get her pencils?

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY

like. subscribe. share. support. comment. ~ thank you. xoxo

*buymeacoffee is a donation website where you may choose to help support the continuing work of artists you value. thank you for your consideration. xoxo*

i can feel the sun over my shoulder, low to the horizon, warming the back of my head. in front of me the field of cut-grain takes on the color of the sunset and the sky darkens in answer to the summoning of nightfall. the color is intense; the darkness is perforated by the suggestion of clouds, maybe stars…maybe it’s too early for that, i wonder. i want to walk up the hill to see what color might lay there, what color might be beyond that which i can see right now. but i stay still. and listen to the crickets in the grass, the cicadas in the small stand of trees behind me, the sigh of day’s end.

extracted from david’s painting WE WATCH THE SETTING SUN and then a time-of-day change from the morsel AUTUMN HILLSIDE, this is AUTUMN HILLSIDE NIGHT.