365…13

I have a collection of photos of my favourite beaches hanging on a wall in my bathroom, of all places. Yesterday, one of those beach photos caught my attention and I studied it, long and hard, taking in the colours, hues, shadows, details, and came to the conclusion…this is something I could paint.

So, tonight, I pushed myself to give it a go and if I failed…well, that would be ok. At least I would have tried. While I prepared my painting space, a voice was repeating a litany over and over of all the reasons this was a stupid idea and I was just setting myself up to fail. I almost changed my mind. I was feeling tired and would prefer a quick painting.

But I didn’t. And I’m so thankful I went ahead and tried it, because, for the first time in this creative journey, I have actually sat back from a painting and smiled, liking what I just painted.

Photo of the day

It was a grey day today, and everything looked dull. Not very inspiring for photography. My sister and niece popped by for a visit and, as we chatted, I noticed a light reflecting on the window behind my sister’s head. It took me a few minutes to figure out that it was the sun. There was a tiny strip of yellow/orange light between the horizon and the massive grey cloud covering. The sun was setting! The colour changed to a vibrant red orange and the clouds took on the colour as well. It was so beautiful. I grabbed my camera, boots, coat, gloves, headband…by the time I got outside it was gone. All that was left was a small strip of red behind the trees. I went back inside, grabbed my tripod, then set up and began snapping photos. Turned out pretty well after all.