Autumn Light

Autumn brings the beauty of pied colour, but also shortening days, morning frost and a change in the quality of sunlight. Even on a clear day, one senses the retreat of the sun in its diluted rays. Darkness comes too soon in the afternoon, and lingers too long in the morning.

In this northern city of Québec, the sun does get a bit of reinforcement on clear, sub-zero winter days, when its rays reflect off the snow, dazzling light-hungry eyes, giving the illusion of warmth. It is an illusion, but one that recalls the true warmth of summer, giving us a smile and a hope.

                                  

                                  Winter Hearts

                   

                             Winter hearts fear not

                             The death of leaves

                             Nor the prophecies

                             Of ice and snow.

                             Winter hearts believe

                             In Spring.

                                      Kathleen Chabot

On a Magic Carpet

It's time for another House Mouse & Friends Monday Challenge, The subject is Bingo or Anything Goes. This card is for Bingo, and I chose the vertical middle squares; orange, yellow and green. The green is subtle, because the leaves have put on their autumn colours, and only a little summer green remains on the veins and the stem.

The stamp is House Mouse Floating on a Leaf, coloured with Stampin' Up watercolour crayons (retired, alas!); the background paper comes from my stash and has been there for ages, the base is discontinued Stampin' Up Marigold Morning.

I'm drawn to the House Mouse mice because of their irrepressible joy. They take delight in everything, and their--or rather Ellen Jarecki's--inventiveness in using everyday objects for mousy mischief and fun is inspiring. Their mischief is never harmful or mean, and they cherish their friends and each other. Here they're using a couple of leaves for a magic carpet. I think I'll grab that leaf stem and sail along with them. Want to join me?

Fall and other delights

I haven't blogged in awhile, but I have been stamping.  I find Autumn an inspiring time, with its joyful colors, it's mix of cold mornings and evenings and summer in between the two. It's a season to celebrate--but then, every season is worth celebrating.

The first card was inspired by a Gina K tutorial http://stamptv.ning.com/video/versamark-resist-background

I didn't have the stamp, ink--except the Versamark used on the background--or the sentiment Gina K used on her card, but I enjoyed the challenge of finding substitutes. The flower stamp is a freebie from the British magazine, Craft Stamper, the sentiment is from the SU set, Wonderful Words. I've done Versamark backgrounds, but learned something new in Gina's tutorial; pigment ink can erase the Versamark! I used chalk, since the ink I was going to use, SU Creamy Caramel, is the Craft (pigment) version.

I used my House Mouse stamps for the next four cards. I just love these mischievous little mice!
The background on the Trick or Treat card is patterned paper, and I used SU Watercolor Wonder crayons with my SU Aqua Painter. The sentiment is from the Inkadinkado "All Hallow's Eve" set. The bats were made with the SU Itty Bitty Bat punch.

The leaves on the Flying by card were cut from a vellum page, the geese are PSX, the mice are HM, and I Cuttlebugged the strip of cs on the left of the card.

The third HM card was done for a layout challenge--stamps are HM, SU and PSX.

I used SU Fresh Fruit and House Mouse stamps on the last card. I hope Monica doesn't mind that I substituted a lime slice for her perfume atomizer. I'm sure she'll find something to do with the slice.

21 September 2009--Last (official) Day of Summer

                         Brief Glory

Doomed leaves blaze

With desperate color

As an icy wind nips

Their frangible stems.

Already, some are slipping silently

Down the sharp-edged air,

Tracing slow, irregular circles,

Settling with a sigh

On the yellowing grass.

Tomorrow is the official beginning of autumn. I hate to see summer go, especially since she only arrived here around the second week of August, and seems to want to linger. Autumn, however, is my next-favorite season, so I do welcome her, only regretting that she foretells the inevitable onslaught of winter, my least-favorite season. Actually, the only thing I really hate about our harsh Québec winters is the darkness of the compacted days. The leaves and acorns on the right were found around my apartment building today. The leaves on the left are stamped and embossed. The arrowhead was found years ago by one of my sons in our then-backyard. 

The layout is not as good as I wanted it to be, but that's the fault of Rascal and Fripon. They not only love  to chase leaves but to eat them. When I started arranging the leaves, they were at my elbow,  sniffing and trying to claw one out of the arrangement. While I was aiming the camera, one  would run  away with a leaf in his mouth as if it were prey. As I chased him, the other took advantage of my distraction to nab one for himself. The leaf at top right bears a jagged edge as evidence of capture. Finally, I managed to make a hasty arrangement and photograph it.  

Soon, I’ll hear geese overhead calling me to follow them south for the winter.

                                              

                                                            Summer’s End

     

Geese v-lining south

Noisely trumpet triumph;

Feathered thieves are

Stealing summer.

 

 The rocks and driftwood in the picture on the right were found in Nova Scotia and Québec years ago. Note the split-open rock with the orange center. There's also a piece of petrified tree. The Champagne cork? Hmmm! Perhaps a romantically-inclined couple toasted their love on a rocky beach somewhere.

All rights reserved for the two poems. 

                                                          

Seasonal Thoughts

The picture in the masthead above is of a tree on my street. It expresses for me the world of color which is autumn. Autumn is a harlequin season of biting, brisk mornings and slowly toasted afternoons. It's sunlight magnified through stained glass leaves and sunlight weakened by truncated days. Autumn is walks through silent woods on paths voluble with brittle leaves, hearts that celebrate a feast of colour while bones chill at the Dark Season's advance. Autumn brings back school days, choirs, book clubs, and football. It terminates lazy summer days, vacations, baseball, barbecues and sundown at ten. Autumn is a harlequin season.

If you think that the photo for this post seems familiar, your're right. It's the picture I used for my Hemingway-style ATC in a previous post.