Living and painting autumn

Today's blog post is about the beauty of autumn. The colors are radiant and warm. Reds, yellows, and oranges dominate. It is a sad delight to see these colors because I know that, within a few years, most of our ash trees will die. It is time to celebrate trees and to think about planting a diverse collection of new trees to replace the ash trees, that are suffering from infestations of emerald ash borers.

The colors of the leaves become visible when the leaves stop producing chlorophyll. This happens when the days get shorter, indicating that it is getting close to the time when trees become dormant. The chlorophyll gives the leaves their green color. The reds, yellows, oranges, and browns appear when there is no more chlorophyll. These pigments are already in the leaves but, during the growing season, are masked by the green color produced by chlorophyll.

Autumn colors can be very dramatic.

The colors of autumn are fun to paint, as well. Two weeks ago, I painted this image of autumn leaves. The technique that I used was to take an actual leaf, paint its underside with watercolor paint, and then press the leaf onto the page. After lifting the leaf off the page,you've got an imprint of the veins of the leaf. After adding several more leaves, to get a pattern, draw in a light outline, and paint the background, which is also known as painting the negative space.

Today's painting was of an outdoor scene that included three elements: autumn trees, a misty sky, and a human. The human that I included was of a man sitting on his knees, juggling colorful objects.

Today's question: What do you enjoy most about autumn?