water flows

“Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad

finishing a thought

I finished this painting this week. I had worked on it last October 2019, during a week spent in Michigan making plein air studies while on the beach in St Joseph, a lovely coastal town along the shores of Lake Michigan. Here is a blog post that I wrote about that week of work. 

https://skivingtonsofar.blogspot.com/2020/03/interest-or-passion.html

I wasn't quite happy with this painting when I brought it back last October but life got too busy in the fall and winter and I didn't pick it up and look at it until this past week after I had finished up another plein air painting session in Michigan a few weeks ago in July.

I couldn't leave it.  I wasn't happy with how it seemed as though the waves and bit of sandy beach were not resolved. I worked on it again until I felt it was finished. Another artist might have advised to discard a work with problems and begin a new one but I felt that by tackling an old piece I would learn more lessons. 

And I have been learning a lot. I won't run out of new things to learn for the rest of my life!

Do I dare?

 “Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?”

― T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems

sister water

“Praised be my Lord, for our sister water.

St. Francis of Assisi,
Canticle of the Sun”
― St. Francis of Assisi