Color in the cove

Cove
Route 1, Mystic, Conn.
Oil, 12x12

I spent much of October driving north to find the brilliant color I’d been expecting October to bring. I found some, but, of course, as the month progressed, the color passed. Wind tore the leaves from the trees around Woodstock, Brooklyn and Canterbury, Conn. And still the color didn’t come to the coast.

Then, I began to see it - but only in places where I couldn’t paint! Private lands; edges of busy roadways; fields with angles right for painting in morning light, but where the color would only show in the afternoon.

Finally, on Route 1, a road I’d driven a million times, I saw this little cove. I could pull over, get off the road, and the trees that I could see caught the light of the setting sun.