The Color Of Winter
At least in North Texas
Summer, in most temperate climates, is lush green with splashes of color. In Texas it tends to be hues of brown, but there is still the green underlying in places, and on the trees1 marking the winding paths of creeks and rivers. Spring and Autumn are riots of colors in all possible hues. Winter is, depending on the clime, hushed white shot through with all the iridescences of light cast through ice. Gray and black trees limn the sweeping scapes of white snow sparkling like cast diamonds in tiny rainbows.
For best appreciation of the photos and colors, you’ll want to open this and view on the desktop!
Winter in Texas is something else. For an artist, the palette is Payne’s Gray and hematite, a splash of Ultramarine and lavendar for the sky, siennas, burnt umber, mummy brown, iron oxide and ochre, not to mention vermillion… And yes, a touch of green here and there for remembering. Here in North Texas, this is a dry time of year. It’s warm enough insects are on the move, with a flutter of dry raspy wings as the grasshoppers spring up and away, or a flicker of sulfur-yellow as the Dainty Sulfur butterfly dances past far too fast for a photograph.
Winter in my area is a symphony of browns, softly blending, with the occasional spark of color you may have to look closely to detect.
While at a glance this may seem dull and even monotonous, if you take your time and patience, you’ll soon realize it’s a landscape full of warm colors.
The aptly-named Christmas Cholla fruits during this season and looks rather as though some whimsical spirit decorated the pencil-like limbs of this cactus with ornaments. Don’t touch, though! Tiny thorns will make quickly regret your decisions if you do.
The Sugar Hackberry brings a darker red to the party, with it’s fruit clinging on well into the next spring and feeding many birds. These small, twisted trees are full of character with their gnarled growth and corky bark.
For the complete Christmas color scheme, the Hackberry plays host to the semi-parasitic American Mistletoe, a welcome pop of green in the silvery twigs and tiny red branches of this small tree.
The maroon of the Chickasaw Plum takes a keen eye to detect, as does the last remaining scarlet leaves of the Skunkbush Sumac (so close to Poison Ivy in their look at this time of year!).
Everywhere are the grasses, the Bluestems now reddish-brown in their winter form. Their tufts of silvery seeds mark them even if the color and clumping habits did not.
And prominent now as they were just a few months ago in glorious yellow bloom, the sunflowers stand among the grasses. Stiff and upright, they hold their seeds for the birds, as they scatter in the wind when it whips through the plains right down from Canada with nothing in the way.
The Yucca crouches in the grasses, stiff swords of dull green and sharp silvery edges. Their seeds are also on the buffet for the birds who pass through, and those who winter here.
A scattering of yellows in the fruits of the Silverleaf Nightshade, and the oranges of lichens clinging to rocks and the trunks of trees, finishes out our color palette for the season. It’s work taking a walk, if you can, to see what colors are on display where you live!
Just like snow isn’t colorless, neither are the dusty plains swept by relentless winds in the winter. It’s taken me some time to really appreciate brown, but it is growing on me. Make sure you look up, and really look at the blue of the sky!
Yes, Mesquite is so a tree!
That was really enjoyable, Cedar. I was picking up trash in my neighborhood on Christmas Day, and because I was looking for out of place shapes or colors, I spotted all the little bits of color among the brown shades of the plants.
This is the kind of stuff you can notice if you slow down enough to pay attention, or are like myself and Mr. Barney Fife "Trained noticers." I am self trained but nevertheless. Nice stuff here.