Week 73

I loved painting this one. I adore the broad strokes of velvet petals. The tiny parts we hinted at with a flick of the brush rather than an hour of painstaking realism. I, for a moment, made the mistake of squeezing out the same color we used for the under painting. The goal was to use that layer liberally, not to match or cover it. The brilliant golden underpainting now shines proudly, capturing the sun that played on the fresh burst of blooms.

Have you ever been in a place where you could look out and see seven choices and outcomes? They were all beautiful. I could see seven different States from our perch on Lookout Mountain Chattanooga, Tennessee. Every which way the bluish green hills sprawled, and there were no state lines from up here. There was a corn patch here and a field sitting fallow, there were large trees and short trees and a whole lot of beautiful. Sometimes choices are hard to see, maybe almost impossible to see at all. Sometimes they are overwhelming in complexity. Looking at this world from a high elevation, I see the beauty and absolute wonder of what we’ve been given. We get to choose. So in that way, all seven are beautiful. When I turned around from the intoxicating expanse before me, these stark white Asiatic lilies seem to nod with the wind, acknowledging the beauty that each of our paths will take.

Seven Beauties

30 x 40 | Oil on canvas