Haying Season

8" x 10" Oil on Panel

Summer's heat. The sun's rays seem to have real weight this time of year. It's radiance presses down upon everything in it's broad path. Though the morning sky may begin clear, throughout the day hot air builds and gathers clouds into towering shapes of domes and anvils. Clouds can grow to crowd out blue sky, bringing scattered thunderstorms by late afternoon.

In the fields west of town it's haying season. Different fields have hay in various stages of harvest - cut, raked or bailed. The long, converging lines of mown hay greet my eye in a way similar to Japanese zen gardens. Fields of cut hay rows are among my favorite things to paint.

The hay field shown in the picture above was adjacent to a bike path that parallels the river. From the path I walked through a row of trees and set up a pochade box in a scattered patch of milkweed. A few monarch butterflies busied themselves about the milkweed blossoms. The picture at the top of this post shows the painting I made that warm summer's day.