Light....

One evening last week, I was looking at the TV listings and found the movie, Under the Tuscan Sun, was showing. I had read the book years ago, but had never seen the movie...so I turned it on. Well, the movie, though a delightful romantic romp, was not like I remember the book. I dug out my copy of the book (I tend to save books with recipes) and started reading it. Once again I was amazed at the wonderful descriptions of almost everything....from the food to the street markets to the colors of the trees....Most of all I was entranced by the descriptions of light.

Light is such a wonderful thing. In Paris, the light is like nowhere else. There is a luminance to it that enriches everything it touches...especially in the early morning and dusk. The Tuscan sun seems to be wonderful all day. When a book is really well written, it helps the reader look not only at the world of the book, but also helps one see his own world through different eyes. The light in West Texas is, by turns, soft, harsh, blindingly bright and a myriad of colors. This morning, the sunrise was gorgeous...orange and yellow...washing the bricks with a wonderful glow. At noon, it will probably be an intense white...bleaching everything a shade or two. Sometimes in the evenings, there is an indigo/purple cast to the light, making shadows deeper. The best sunsets occur, ironically, when there is a lot of dust in the atmosphere. The dust particles reflect the setting sun and light up the sky with oranges, golds, fuchsias, purples and all the shades between.

Now, if I could just capture all that wonderful light in a painting...