Sunday morning, fleeting light

When I opened my eyes and looked over at my bedside clock's LED display this morning, it was after 6:00AM, but only the faintest pre-dawn light outlined the window. A milder day than Saturday was forecast, and by habit not inclined to lounge in bed, I thought it would do me good to be out early in the day. "Maybe I'll try another pastel" became "Just go do it", so I put a couple of under-used boxes of foam packed colors carefully into my old day pack with a pad of Strathmore medium drawing paper while my coffee was steeping, then walked out into the morning. I looked up at a cloud strewn sky dappled pink and purple grey, and knew that if I was going to take advantage of the day's best light, I needed to get moving, and I'd best not wander far. Uncovered the MG, tucked away the top, snuck out of town and into the corn and soy fields. Found my scene less than two miles away, parked on the grassy berm, and quickly got settled and started.

Working with soft pastels, especially the really good ones that Terry Ludwig makes by hand in Colorado, is for me like being a rough framing carpenter accustomed to swinging a 20 ounce hammer to slam 20d nails into 2x4s, then trying to do fine finish work with my heavy hand. The squares of rich pigment crumble under all but the lightest touch. My usual vigorous strokes result in breaking sticks and smearing colored dust around. Blending happens almost inadvertently, and not always with happy results. I'm having to re-learn how to draw.

But the light across the dark green soybeans was quietly glorious. The sun rose, casting beams through the partly occluded sky, picking out luminous highlights in the treetops and tickling the contours of the fields and the wooded hills across the hidden Susquehanna. The scene shifted and morphed before my eyes; one moment a distant stand of corn glowing like burnished gold, and the next faded to grey. The sky undulated softly through a range of subtle pattern and color. It was hard not to just sit there slack jawed and staring instead of trying to do what I was there to do.

I didn't tarry all that long - it was a fleeting scene, and I didn't want to totally screw it up by overworking. A dog barking at me across the way was my signal to scoop up the purple stick I'd carelessly crushed under my shoe, put away the rest of the pastels, rinse my chalk covered hands with a squeeze bottle and wipe them in the grass. Stowed everything in the trunk and pulled back onto the deserted road. I was back home before the rest of my pot of coffee had cooled. But it isn't the duration of the experience that really matters. It's the quality of the moment.

11" x 14", Terry Ludwig soft pastels on Strathmore Drawing paper