Sunshine and Leaves

 Hi everyone. Happy first Thursday in November. 

Things are chilling off a a lot this week. Our overnight temperatures are down in the 20's (around -4 degrees C). Brrr.  Time to dig out some warmer jackets for my morning walk. Welcome November. 

It is also dark at 6 PM. This weekend we change the clocks too, so on Sunday night it will be dark by 5 PM. I'm glad I'm no longer working and can enjoy more sun and outdoor time on these short days.  When I was working I seemed to never really get any fresh air and sunshine because when I was home it would be dark and when it was light I would be inside a classroom. I am definitely someone who needs some outdoor time, especially when it is sunny. The "happy" light for seasonal distress syndrome works much better when I can supplement with real sunlight. 

My page today is about that sunshine, especially how it important it is for photosynthesis.

Science lesson or lesson reminder time:

You probably know that leaves take in sunshine and use that light energy to make chemical energy. They convert the wastes from when we exhale  (carbon dioxide and water) to make the food that runs just about every living cell, glucose.  In the process plants make a waste product, oxygen. Plants use some oxygen to make the energy they need, but they produce more than they need, so they release it. Animals like us, then inhale that oxygen and use it to make our energy. We also eat plants, or we eat animals that eat plants, and get the glucose we need to survive that way. It really is an ingenious cycle.

That's photosynthesis in a nutshell. 

To make my page I started with blue paint and also some blue watercolor crayons. Then I hand drew the leaves on my page and painted them with some green paints. Once that dried, I cut up an old school overhead about photosynthesis and sunlight and layered that on my page. You can see a slight glare of that in the top left corner of my page. I glued down 3 golden die cut leaves, and then I splattered my entire page with some sunshine yellow paint. The splatter is supposed to represent all the sunlight moving through the atmosphere; its not just there for artistic effect (smile). Finally I stamped and added the quote.

This page is my art for Art Every Day month- Day 4 as well as for linking up to Chris' challenge at Art Journal Journey.

And our cool nights have meant frost.  The hydrangeas are pretty sensitive to the cold, but there is a short time before we get a hard frost that the colors are pretty.

Not only do you get a brief period with these pretty purple in the leaves, but the flowers  have so many different shades of blue, pink and purple too.

It won't be long before the leaves blacken and die. That's November for you.

Thanks for visiting!