“November Moon”

Oil pastel, watercolor, gouache, graphite on vintage book page 4 x 6 inches

November – already more than half gone, my sweetest month.  I’ve always loved this month of coming winter, of winter holidays, the beginning of endings, and starting over in a new year.  I even got married in November once, in a small beach town where winter was no more than a passing thought around the 1^st of January.

When I was a school girl, I loved walking home from school in November, carrying my home-work, or a construction paper frippery, probably leaves and squirrels, acorns, and possibly a colorful turkey with dried paste leaving smudgy fingerprints on the brown background.  The Los Angeles sun casting those long afternoon shadows, and a little wind sometimes arriving from nowhere to lift the hem of my dress; even if it wasn’t a cold wintery-feeling wind, it still felt like coming winter to me because of that hazy early evening light, and the long shadows creating mysterious little pockets in curbside gardens and shrubs.  A few trees might change color and lose their leaves, dancing in that dress lifting wind, but mostly it was palm trees and arborvitaes, and pink or white oleanders parading beside the sidewalks.

I had a brown plaid dress and a yellow cardigan I wore a lot during 3^rd or 4^th grade.  I can see myself walking along, looking at the blue transparent moon still high in the sky, barely visible in the afternoon light, my hair in long braids with ribbons flagging the ends, brown sensible (and hated) oxfords on my feet with white socks turned carefully over to form a neat cuff; a quiet child, given to daydreams and seeing the world from her own artist angle, talking to fairies or the moon on a November afternoon.

“Moon-y”

Oil pastel, watercolor, gouache, graphite on vintage book page 4 x 6 inches

“Moon-y II”

Oil pastel, watercolor, gouache, graphite on vintage book page 4 x 6 inches