November – Changing Seasons

Incredibly, the end of the month is upon us already.  

November has been relatively quiet for me after the hectic pace of the past several months and my photo library feels a little sparse. 

In the spirit of continuing to challenge myself and try new things, last month I enrolled in art classes at a small nearby studio.  As a result, I’ve spent a good chunk of this month heads-down, exploring this new world that’s opened up for me.

I have no new-found latent talent that I can claim, but I’ve discovered that even someone ‘artistically challenged’ like me can learn some basic skills. 

No – this is not an original design, just one I tried meticulously to reproduce as I learned about colour mixing and brush strokes

I originally started out using acrylics, but I currently have 2 large canvases in progress using water-based oil paints.   I’m not going to pretend that it’s been easy.  My instinct is to over-think everything so the process has been painstakingly slow.  It doesn’t help that I appear to be colour-challenged.

November isn’t exactly a beautiful month around here.  By the time November arrives, the leaves are mostly gone from the trees and the sun takes a holiday.  

If you like gray leaden skies, this is a primo time.

Camp 30 – Bowmanville

I’ve already written about my excursion to Niagara Falls this month for the Winter Festival of Lights, but while we were there we visited a few other attractions – like the Falls themselves.

Niagara Falls and the wall of misty rain it creates

The heavy mist coming off the Falls created stunning ice sculptures out of any stationary object.  You could tell the direction of the wind simply by what was frosted in ice.

These trees had been bare the day we arrived but overnight they were turned into giant popsicles.  

Welcome to November – this is a colour photo.

The blue ‘haze’ on the tree are actually the light bulbs decorating this tree.  The waterfront is part of the Festival of Lights

A short distance north of the Falls is Lundy’s Lane – the scene of one of the bloodiest battles of the War of 1812 between the US and Britain.  The battlefield is now a cemetery and a memorial to that battle.

It was late in the afternoon when we visited Lundy’s Lane.  We didn’t linger long in the deep chill of the fading sunlight and decided to revisit the following morning.

The War of 1812 ended in February 1815.  The Battle of Lundy’s Lane occurred in July 1814.  American troops were forced to withdraw after suffering significant casualties

If you think it is odd to see the Union Jack flying on Canadian soil then you’re not alone.  I did too, but then assumed it was because this was a British battle.  

It would be another 55 years following the War of 1812 before Canada would become a country and another 98 years after that before we would get our own flag. 

Many of the old stones are simple markers and some are now unreadable.

However, several new memorials were installed in 2012 for the 200th anniversary of this war.  This included memorials for 20 unknown American soldiers buried on this site.

So this was my November – gray, some snow, and mostly cold … but it’s been warm indoors playing with paints.  Overall, I’d say it was pretty good.

Not wanting to end this post in a cemetery, I leave you with a final image from the Niagara Falls Winter Festival of Lights.

Coincidentally, we enjoyed a real full moon in addition to this version.

Changing Seasons is a monthly photo feature hosted this year by Su Leslie at Zimmerbitch.