Soul Mosaic

My earlier posts had photos of the New England seascape I’ve been painting for my sister. And for whatever reason, the Photoshop demon that plagued some of the intermediate photos of this painting, did not raise its ugly head for these. So, my final photos of this painting. If you want to compare these to earlier photos, just click here for the page that has all the previous links for the New England seascape photos.

And now, the first is a shot of the whole:

Then some closer shots of the left, middle, and right sides of the painting:

Some shots of the tide pool, rock and seaweed details, and foamy surf:

A couple shots of the pier and town (note my attempt at a Corvette for my brother-in-law in the town picture):

And last but not least, a hermit crab on the rocks, a nod to my Under the Pier main animal character!

So, now it will be on to other seascapes, paintings of my story’s diner (inside and out), and some pen and ink drawings with color washes of the various animal characters under the pier! Stay tuned.

I have always loved the passage from Matthew 6:26 about the birds of the air:

“Look at the birds in the sky. They don’t plant or harvest or gather food into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. You are more valuable than they are, aren’t you?”

In lieu of my talking today, I am going to share a blog entry link I came across today. The blog is called “Travelin’ with Charlie” and the description is as follows: “An occasional travelogue, philosophical and spiritual journal of a middle-aged widow, recently retired, who is trying out life as a fulltime RVer with her Golden Retriever, Charlie.”

Spiritual journeys of any kind intrigue me, and as I noted in my Bette Davis blog post the other day, the stories of people and their heroic attempts to make their way through life, along with their flaws as well as the poignant, always, always interest and inspire me. Her January 8, 2008 blog entry happened to pop up when I did a Google search for the Bible passage on birds of the air. She did one that day entitled:

“The Birds of the Air, The Lilies of the Field

What struck me was her discussion, which mirrored some of my thoughts, about how in the end, all our worries about food, bills, things etc. are really meaningless and not important, yet ….they ARE important because we need food, a place to live, some preparations for our future and the care of our children….we can’t just abdicate our responsibility to look after ourselves and live life blindly. There has to be some middle path, some kind of balance in the tension of these two extremes. Anyway, she talks about those passages and includes in her discussions, thoughts about the mystics, St. John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, and Thomas Merton, all personal favorites of mine. She explores what it is for each of us to travel through our own “dark night of the soul.” In any event, I thought I would share her blog entry.

Her brief bit about herself on the blog page states that she is a 57-year-old Leo, lives in Portland Oregon, and adds: “Widowed suddenly in October, 2003. Decided being single shouldn’t keep me from the dreams my late husband and I shared of traveling our beautiful country. Check out my other posts on The Oregonian’s web page, http://www.oregonlive.com/travel/ and watch for my articles in the travel section of the Sunday Oregonian every few weeks.”

In any event, I’m going to add her to my Blogroll, and if any out there are interested in following her travels and thoughts, just visit Travelin’ With Charlie.

Enjoy her, and below, I’ve added some of my own “birds of the air” moments from a beach trip a couple years ago. Happy Sunday…and Happy June.

With summer’s heat creeping up on us, something to cool you off: