This is the kind of place I like to walk in the fall and winter, with little secluded hollows and pools covered with fallen leaves and the warm autumn afternoon sun.

I have a maple tree in my yard that sometimes turns these colors in the fall - red on the outer leaves, then yellow, and the inner leaves still green. Other years, though, it just turns yellow. Then it's more like the tree in my Autumn Guardian.

I first had the idea for this on a family trip around Thanksgiving of 2016. I was watching the landscape go by and noticed how the smaller trees still had their leaves, and how the dead leaves were almost pink. It may not be as beautiful as spring flowers or autumn leaves or snow, but there are scenes worth looking at even in an apparently lifeless landscape. This hanging on of dead leaves through the winter is called “marcescence”, and it is especially common in young oak trees like these.

This is my digital artwork, not a photograph.

It's been a year since I launched this website, so here's a picture in celebration. I've added 77 more images in the past year, 7 of which were new designs, for a current total of 120 images available for screen wallpaper and prints. This is my fall version of the seasonal globe idea.

A fallen leaf reflects the tree it came from.

Here in South Carolina my maple tree won't look like this for another month, but this is a sight I've seen many times in previous autumns - a bright red male cardinal in a yellow maple. The cardinals are often the first birds to show up when I refill the bird feeder.

I started out with a snowflake ornament, and intended this picture to celebrate the first day of winter, but I decided the star looked better. I think it was still appropriate, to celebrate the Light of the world on the longest night of the year. And that year it was also the new moon, so it was the darkest night as well!

“Silent Night! Holy Night!
All is calm, all is bright
'Round yon virgin mother and Child,
Holy infant so tender and mild.
Sleep in heavenly peace,
sleep in heavenly peace.”

“Silence was pleased: now glowed the firmament
With living sapphires: Hesperus that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the Moon
Rising in clouded Majesty, at length
Apparent queen unveiled her peerless light,
And o're the dark her Silver Mantle threw.”
— Paradise Lost

I created this picture in Vue to use for a mural on my bedroom wall.

It looks nice for a picture, but it's a pain when you're out walking! This took over a week to render (at a larger size than this), mainly because of the blurring.

This design is in the Art Deco style popular in the early 1900s. I came across a lot of stained-glass designs in my researches, so I decided to try one with the popular sun motif. I had fun picking textures from various Apophysis and Xaos renders, some of which have been sitting on my computer for months or even years. There are bits of Eyes of the Storms, Waltz of the Snowflakes, and Chaos Tie-Dyed in there, as well as others that have never seen the light of day.
December 21, 2015