Scrapping the frost from the car windows, that first touch of winter awakens the dormant artist that sleeps. Copper red and venetian colored branches of the plum tree scratch my cheek as I squeeze by to finish the windshield. Like the long fingers of a model catching the sun in my studio, there comes an awareness of the beauty that stirs around me. Walking round to the front, I see my neighbors houses draped in the November sun. With leaves swept away by the West wind, there is a sense of a clean palette. Bending to pick up the morning paper, I'm frozen for a minute by the different colors in the grains of sand and stones making up the cement.
We settle in to our world and our ways, missing the tiny things around us. The veins in a model's hands disappear along with wonderful colors we first see with that initial lift of our brush to capture their beauty when they pose. The clean winter sun freshens our minds. The cobalt sky and peach colored house on the corner will be with me as I see the model. The smile of the young man passing on the street enriches the light on the snow that is only there in the painting on my easel.
For me it is the things that are not in each painting that inspire me, seeing a child splash in a rain puddle or turning to listen to the chimes of church bells. This morning it was the sun washing away the chill of a November morning.
