"The forests had put on their sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer kind had been nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet"~ Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Autumn, or fall if you prefer, is one of the seasons that really bring home the old NE adage "If you don't like the weather- wait a minute."   


Despite the grumbling that such temperamental weather normally brings, it makes for great scenery.   So far this year, we've had a mild autumn with pretty warm days (80+ in mid-October!)  and just enough cool temperatures to make the trees look amazing.  

While I won't say that NE is Heaven on earth-  it is pretty divine in autumn.  

It no doubt helps that I adore Halloween and everything that goes along with the fall season- from apple picking and hay rides to days that just demand sweaters, hot toddys and soup in the evening, I love it.  

My front door has a nine pane glass window on the top half, which I decorated for the spring this Easter with an appropriate scene in acrylics and ended up keeping on the door through most of the summer until it was faded so bad you couldn't see the dragon eating the bunny anymore.

Yes, my Easter imagery includes dragons eating bunnies.  Next year I'm thinking about Cthulhu as the Easter Bunny.

Anyway, after a few weeks of being able to look through my front door window, I decided to do another painting.  For Halloween this time, also appropriately themed.

I remember being scared silly by the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" as a kid, so chose to do a scene from the tale as my front door painting for Halloween.   There's just so much about that tale that is so quintessentially NE  even today- from Irving's descriptions of the scenery to how lonely certain roads can be on a chill damp evening in fall with dead leaves being disturbed by rodents and other creatures (small or otherwise).

Second day of painting- taken from the front side.   

View from the reverse side- the side I paint on-  I really liked the view from this angle and almost kept it.  However, it was still a bit too bright and cheerful...  

Much better- daylight and all.    I considered using the midnight blue and black tones as the background for  all of it, but liked the frame better since this way you can see the image from both sides, not just one.    

It looks spectacular at night from outside looking in with the lights on in the house- I'm going to try and take some better photos with my camera instead of my cell phone this week, hopefully.  My talents in that arena are distinctly mediocre at best.

Well, I think that's about all for today- I have a book calling out to me and only an hour until I have to go back to work.  

Enjoy!