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Morrell, Andrew. Maple Leaf on Shaker Grainite Beach.

Next to the canvas I laid the the autumn leaf that I picked up earlier, and I began to paint its likeness on the fabric, choosing a view so close that the leaf is all the viewer can see. The first leaf of autumn, once like all the rest in its green vitality but now blazing flame's colors, dying colors, that look so beautiful from afar. When I first picked it up, the leaf was like thousands of mountains and valleys in my hand, a fragile plate of land burning scarlet and gold with a bubbling coat of lava, but the painted likeness of the leaf on canvas seems a thing much stronger, like dragon skin, its green veins humming, its life impervious to any looming death, born from the fire that should have destroyed it. An idea is always stronger than the reality.
I painted the hours away, washing the brush in a ceramic cup full of water, drying it in a raggedy paint-splattered cloth, and dipping the brush in pigments arrayed on a thin piece of wood. Color after color was dipped in, mixed, deposited on the canvas, and washed from the brush, while the wind wound the sounds and smells of Atlantis around me, seeming to absorb even my thoughts, adding them to the tide and sweeping their echos out of the doorway to join the currents of Atlantis.

          

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2012 HauntedNorthAmerica.net Riokaza

Fish scales gleam against the carved and patterned wood. The smells wafting from the street-side carts fraternize with the salty scent of the ocean, creating a new entity to dance with many strands of music forging their own paths amidst the air sustaining us. Atlantis.
I walk, buffeted by the heat of nearby forges and ever-present sea breezes, catching odd words and continuous tones from open doors leading to aged learners caught up in the thrill of sharing what they know. Crowds blur into a kaleidoscope of colors, with random characteristics coming into focus as I pass: a pair of large lips colored a dark red, a pair of brown eyes glancing up at the sun, short steps alongside long strides, booming voices blending with a multitude of murmurs. The tall sway scattered among the short, together like a moving tundra, its trees and grasses each straining to bridge the distance between them. Idly I trace the cool stone swirls and precise carvings of a familiar doorway and walk through. The flat paint scent is there but I barely smell it. I only have attention for the painting cloth stretched flat between two stones and my brush empty of pigment.