Late Summer Joys and Day 14 of 30 Days 30 Paintings

There are more and more leaves on the ground. Colors are changing. Some of the plants in the garden are finishing up. The temperatures dipped into the 40s a couple nights recently. But summer is still here.

I'm still harvesting from the garden. Preserving.

Eating.

Getting produce from my parents and from our friends. It's been good eating around here lately. Potato leek soup. Peach cobbler. Garlicky eggplants and peppers with Asian noodles...

I'm still working on paintings of flowers cut from the garden (though I'm making myself stop with the nasturtiums for now... be on the lookout later in the week for the last of the nasturtium-inspired art).

The zinnias are going strong, more and more flowers popping up.

The sun has moved and the light in the garden has changed. This morning I looked out and saw the sun falling on a coleus plant and was drawn outside to photograph it.

When I entered the garden I nearly ran into a couple hummingbirds that were chasing each other around the yard. I'm so glad to still be seeing them and I'm so glad that the coleus in the sunshine called me out to the garden. I snapped away at the hummingbirds, getting only blurry shots for my trouble. I don't have the right sort of lens to photograph birds and I'm nowhere near fast enough to capture a hummingbird. Among the completely blurred shots there was one that makes me incredibly happy, a hummingbird with its head deep in a nasturtium flower.

Everywhere there is beauty and grace. So much to be grateful for. So much to bring joy.

Oh, and my painting today. Garden harvest inspired beauty.

I've been wanting to paint an eggplant for years but always end up eating my eggplants before I get a chance to paint them. (Thanks, Mom, for sharing your abundance!). I tried to loosen up a bit with this one. I used my biggest brushes. I forced myself to ignore that voice telling me to add another layer of paint, a bit more detail.

It was fun and I'm happy with my painted eggplant.