Watercolor: Dogs in Snow

No time to blog, I'm taking a little drive out of town for a few days and then throwing a neighborhood party next weekend.  That will about do it for October.  Much progress was made this month and I want to write about it, but that will wait until November.  I'm just heading out the door in a few moments.  So here's a little post to tide us over.  It's my latest watercolor.  It's my friend's dogs, Hap and Roxann, in snow.  A white dog in snow was a new challenge and I'm afraid I didn't get the proportions quite right, but I think I did capture the mid-bound of Roxann running toward the camera.  I did this on postcard stock thinking to mail it to my friend as a surprise, but I liked it so much when I finished, I enclosed it in a letter to save it from the dirty machinery of the U.S. Postal Service.  I'm eager to get back to painting, but it will wait until November.  In the meantime, enjoy Hap and Roxann, dogs in snow.

October

October

From my open window

This mild October morning

A breeze

With musky, ripe scent
Swirls through my space and me.

The giant elm across the way

Soughs, bends, straightens

Slowly,

With age-stiffened limbs

Not unlike my own.

Silhouetted against a still-dark sky,

Its leafy fullness

Shows no hint of changes

Soon to come.

Neighbor houses closed up tight

In their man-made coolness

Do not share this pleasure

I enjoy—a treat

For all the senses.

I sit by open window

My house fragrant

With the new season.

I breathe of it deeply

And feel a kinship.

I, too, am autumn.

My day ahead is busy,

Duties tug,

Pulling me away

But the breeze persuades me

To stay a bit longer.

To feel this coolness

And taste a delicious ripeness

And receive the subtle messages

Of change.

Copyright 2011 Becky Stauffer