14 September 2009

Summer's Over

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Saturday was hot, a really glorious day.  However, the swallows have gone so the blue sky felt empty without their energetic dance swooping and soaring the catch insects.  They must have left while I was in London last weekend and into last week.  Another year gone, another winter to contend with.  It's still warm and today is bright sunshine, so I shall enjoy the last days of an Indian summer.

You can see it with the changing light.  There's a field just over Hewick Bridge as you come into Ripon where there a rows of round straw bales all lined up neatly like soldiers to attention. 

I love the long shadows cast by these as I come in of a morning.  There is a crispness of light at this time which seems to sharpen shapes and contours.  I can now see why Monet enjoyed painting these simple shapes with seemingly endless paintings of haystacks, but it is the changing light that fascinates him.  And light has weird colours to it - purples and blues in winter, but there's still a warm orangey glow to the shadows and light in this early autumn time.