it's the little things

'Edison Field' 36x24" oil pastel on board;
Kathleen Faulkner

I overcommitted this year.  How does one say no to such wonderful opportunities? 

Walking around the valley clears my head.  Those little breaks..   help me when I return home to work.  

There is a lot to do but I will keep at it.  I always feel good when I've completed work that has been a challenge.  I'm already feeling good about it all.

The first project is done.  I find myself walking around in circles with a smile on my face.

land of wild

'Fallow Field' 18x24" oil pastel on board;   Kathleen Faulkner

The field is at the end of the road;  beyond that, the Skagit river.
I've only been to this field a few times.
Once it was covered in river water.   Another time the water between the rows had frozen.
This last time it was a soft, slight green.
The field has a wildness about it despite having been altered by man.   It is something hard to explain.
Once I smelled the Salish sea there.

Some places have that wild energy yet live so close to home: all along the edges of Fir Island, the slough through Edison, the rotten dock at the north end of town.

Later I'll walk up to Cranberry Lake nestled in the midst of the Anacortes Forest Lands nestled in the midst of town.

half light

'The Gloaming'  18x24" oil pastel on board;  Kathleen Faulkner

The Plowboy

After the last red sunset glimmer,

Black on the line of a low hill rise,

Formed into moving shadows, I saw

A plowboy and two horses lined against the gray,

Plowing in the dusk the last furrow.

The turf had a gleam of brown,

And a smell of soil was in the air,

And, cool and moist, a haze of April.

I shall remember you long,

Plowboy and horses against the sky in shadow.

I shall remember you and the picture

You made for me,

Turning the turf in the dusk

And haze of an April gloaming.

Carl Sandburg