An Eye on the Sky & My Daily Evening Show ~ Happy Summer Solstice

We love watching the sunset slowly sweep across the wide spans of landscape from the view out our windows in our house on top of a hill overlooking the hills of Kentucky, the Ohio River, the city of Cincinnati alongside it, and all the bridges over and between them. 

From our view, in the wintertime around Christmas, the sun sets far left of the city into the boundless, beautiful horizon of the rolling hilltops of Kentucky and then incrementally makes its daily set slowly sweeping across the entire landscape and then the whole cityscape until it reaches into the hills of Mount Adams to the northeast of the downtown Cincinnati skyline. It is at that point setting over-top Mt. Adams where it reaches its farthest extension in the right corners of our window frames before it turns around and starts heading back to set over the whole length of the city and then into the hills of Kentucky again. 

Today, this June 20th, marks that furthermost Summer Solstice sunset over charming Mount Adams on the edge of the city that will cast a beautiful setting before slowly making its way back over all the hills to the other side of the broad landscape frame. It is still pretty amazing to me that throughout the year and all within our view, from the pivotal point of the Winter Solstice to the pivotal point of the Summer Solstice, we can literally see the world turn on its tilted axis, day by day and season by season, by watching the sun not only rise and fall but also by watching the wings of its sunsets move from side to side through our wide window panes and across the earthly landscape as well as across the ever-changing skies.

Keeping an eye on the sky is my kind of entertainment and observing the wonderful, colorful sunset is my choice of a screen-free daily evening show.  At its midpoint, during the Spring and Fall Equinoxes, from our view looking directly west, we find the sun setting with its rainbow of light in alignment with the Cincinnati Bengals’ stadium as it descends and sets just behind that city landmark on the west side of the cityscape around St. Patrick’s Day in March and then again around the Bengals’ home opener in September as it returns in that direction dressed in the fiery orange tones that the fall season brings.

Below are a series of process pictures of an extra large ( 6' x 5’ ) painting inspired by the view out the windows of our home now that I did eight summers ago in the tighter quarters of our old home's makeshift studio space while in the process of packing-up our old house while our hill-top house we live in now was just finishing being built and just before we moved in.

Now, after eight years and despite the fact that no painting or repeated snapping of photos can truly capture the sights or sunsets, I can certainly say that my anticipation then of the daily views and evening light show in the sky continues to shine above and beyond my expectations.

​Year after year, along with the clarity of observing the celestial cycle, another parallel reality that I consistently find pretty awesome is how green and expansive all the continually rolling hills are and how close they come-up just to the edge of the city.  From our sights it appears as an infinite horizon of just layers and layers of green hill after green hill with the cityscape, like the fictitious Emerald City, sitting in a little pocket between them all. 

Happy Summer and Happy Solstice!!

And finally a bittersweet memory I just came across from 8 years ago of our old dog, Moxie, who was always by my side in all the various processes of my creations and paintings and just about everything else I did in our old house who now looks down on us from The Rainbow Bridge. 

...and here's another warm memory incorporating the scene in one of my Christmas Card paintings for a holiday season a few years back when our hill-top house was brand new.

Read more about my following the sun artwork on my “About” page:
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www.ChrissyBreslinSchroeder.com/About
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