Autumn is the Orange season

I am sitting here at my desk on a cold and sunny afternoon. The windows are all aglow with oranges, yellows and reds, hints of brown slowly overtaking the boldest display of colors nature has to show. The experience is so brief but always delivers a joyous burst before the long months of cold when grays are the main color theme. I have been taking photos of the leaves here and there when I go for walks and I have a few to share. I was lucky to go south last week to Williamsburg and Jamestown Va for a visit with my out of town family and friends. We sat by the fire in our rooms and told and listened to stories each of the elders had for us. It's getting harder to go out and make new experiences for some of the gang and just being together and sharing is still an exciting event with so much distance in between our family and these friends. Keith and I love going to colonial Williamsburg and the loop drive at Jamestown the original English colony famous for Captain John Smith and his little friend Pocahontas who married John Rolfe some years later and became the first officially sanctioned bi-racial marriage in the new world. The history in that area is fascinating to me and there are a some really good books that detail the stories for those interested in the colorful details. The designs in Colonial era were heavily influenced by Chinese art and ceramics. I designed a quilt based on one very popular fence detail my father the Architect told me was Chinese years ago. He and his father used it on their home's front porch.  Naturally, I took along a few inside projects, to fill some of my time in the big apartments we were staying in while in Williamsburg. I got one really big quilt top basted together ready to hand quilt and a second smaller one is nearly finished. My next blog post will be about finished quilts.

Brookland's streets full of color before we went south to Virginia

This year numerous deer were seen on the Jamestown Island Loop drive.

James River is tidal and surrounds Jamestown Island

Marsh grasses grow all over Jamestown island 

Sister Jenny, Mildred, Phyllis, Elizabeth and Frank at Jamestown glass blower

Keith with his long lens taking photos on Jamestown Island

Colonial Williamsburg was nearing peak color in their maple trees 

Yellow berries on a holly tree in colonial Williamsburg. Rare 

Colonial garden center

Lesson in how to make a garden row to plant seeds for winter crops. 

Scarlet oaks one of my favorites 

red house paint colonial style

The new Carlton Coffee House next to the Colonial Capitol was added a couple years ago 

All the formal gardens are open for free in Williamsburg 

Coffee house and costumed folks

bicyclists and girls on a bench lined the Duke's street 

tented encampment on a side yard was doing laundry

One of my favorite gardens has a stream running through with little foot bridges

a new tree to me this pink leaf wonder was only at Ford's Colony where we took long walks on wooded trails. 

more pink orange leaves over head

miles of trails at Ford's Colony made it a perfect vacation place to walk.

The pink tree at the edge of the woods posed for a close up. 

snip, slice, cut, peal, repeat.

This week has been so much fun since my workshop at the Pyramid Atlantic Studios in paper cut stencil making also called a Scherenschnitte which is very particular to they type of art craft making. I know it looks hard to say but "sharon sh-knit-ta" is a phonetic approximation of how it sounds with my American English... Anyway how ever you pronounce it the point is it is fun.

diamonds, spades, clubs and heart 3x22" black paper

Today after some shopping I spent the afternoon enduring this little heat wave that blew into DC sitting by the AC drawing then cutting a third scherenschnitte motif. I was thinking about my brother in law Franz Poti who arranged for all the family ladies to meet him and my sister Jenny, in Las Vegas for the beginning of a week long trip to Utah time shares. He loves to gamble and this past weekend was his 50th Birthday so he got to gamble and have fun in Las Vegas. Cards came to mind so I offer this little design with him and Bridge mistress Mildred Cunningham in mind.

 Keith took my photo while I was cutting the final few bits out of my first scherenschnitte last Friday evening after the workshop. I love seeing how "into it" I was I didn't even notice I was getting my portrait made.  Notice, I forgot to take off my orange name tag? Today that ice cold glass of water looks so delicious. Thanks for catching me shinning so brightly, Keith.

Frederick cutting his first scherenschnitte 5-20-2011

I did a second paper cut this week which is more ambitious than my first heart design. I was thinking about my neighbor's two robins nesting in his front and back yard. Dan and Peter were posting daily photos on face book as the little blue eggs appeared, then hatched and eventually flew away. So this one is dedicated to all the bird lovers who love to watch these creatures raise their young in our gardens. I am still waiting on the house wren to settle into one of our bird houses and make some babies!

 chicks in a tree, worms are on the way

The last thing I have to offer today is a bit of red hot orange! My native Turk's cap species lilies began to bloom and I couldn't resist drawing them this morning while in the garden for my daily sketch. The fastest way to share the sketch and the flowers is with a couple photos of them together so watch for more images when I get this scanned. 

watercolor and pen sketch of lily in our garden

orange Turk's cap lilies

bull run blue bell

This week while driving to visit Manassas to see my sister Jenny who is visiting from Texas prompted me to look for Virginia Blue Bells in bloom along the Battlefield Park. I saw they were in bloom from the highway and as soon as I got home I asked if Jenny had ever seen them, no was her answer, so we made a bee line to the park. The main office and museum gives out passes to park and is located next to the iconic Stonewall Jackson statue. He was a confederate general  that stood "like a stone wall" in one of the two battles of Manassas (battle of Bull Run for the north) .  We found the park office closed at 5 pm and drove on over to the Stone Bridge walk along bull run to see the wild blue flowers that grow in the flood plains on both sides of bull run.

I have some pictures from when I was there with my parents a few years ago so this time I just focused on Jenny and the swampy area that caught my eye. She spotted some white tailed deer grazing on the fresh spring grass. They were about 300 feet away and the zoom didn't help much because the light was low and the hands a little shaky. If you look very hard at the view of the swampy forest field you might see them back there.