February.

Last weekend, while traveling on SC 25, I was mentally gathering items for this month's still life (see January's here). I had been jotting ideas in my journal all month---things individual and particular to this time (February 2010) and place (the South).

The sun was rising behind me as I drove and the sky melted from deep indigo to a pale wash of cerulean blue. This blue faded into a warm raw sienna backlighting and highlighting the line of trees. Trees that were a mixture of hardwoods with charcoal fingers stretching and reaching, and swaying vermilion pines. Laid out in front of the trees and rushing up to meet the road were stubbly straw colored fields encased in frost. As the sun tipped over the horizon it turned the trees copper and crimson and liberated the fields with light and life.

HERE

 on this day and at this time

 were the things of February...

 echoed in the colors of the landscape:

• The leafy greens so prevalent now in the garden evidenced by the pines.
• Bare branches and many, many, many nests made obvious by the absence of leaves seen in the branches of the hardwood trees.
• Everywhere the twittering, whirring, hopping, and pulling of the beautiful breast of the American Robin seconded by the blaze of color on the trees.
• Swelling buds encased in the sheen of velvety layers mimicked by the fields swathed in icy frost.

Vermilion, charcoal, velvet, and copper