Vermont & Upstate New York

When I take a trip in the early fall through Vermont and upstate NY I'm always looking for some autumn color and hoping I will hit it right. Its so weather dependent. Temperature and moisture determine how vibrant the color is, when it starts and when the leaves fall. Its always earlier than the color on the southern Maine coast so I usually come home and have more great scenes to paint.

On my way over the mountains from Williamstown into NY I pulled off onto a dirt road in Berlin, NY. This farm looked quiet, possibly abandoned, but all the fields around it were planted with corn.

There had been a hard rain the day before so the dirt road was full of big puddles in the low spots where the tractors had driven. This valley was edged with the Taconic Mountains.

When we headed north into Vermont the next morning and then east to get back home to Maine there were maples turning red on route 9 just outside of Bennington in the Green Mountains.

As route 9 headed up higher into the Green Mountains near Wilmington the whole hillside was turning a faint golden yellow mixed in with dark late summer greens.

We stopped in Brattleboro along the West River in the late afternoon. It was mostly green with the fields of corn turning golden brown. The hills across the river in NH were a vivid blue. I love that town and the way it is tucked in along the river with those steep hills on the NH side. I used to live there. It is really a nice community.
All sketches are marker and watercolor on 60 lb. paper.