Snow Day

This painting is unfinished business, waiting for my return.  How appropriate it has come around to winter again so I’m more motivated to get out the brushes and finish this project.  I began it in winter, left it over a summer and here it is again, winter.

It all began as a photo opportunity, an interrupted moment when I was at a friends house during an intimate time of group prayer together.  I looked up from where I sat and saw the thick snow flakes drifting down over the yard covering the two lawn chairs which had not been put away after their last sun soak in summer.

After the photo was taken,  the painting was created and though originally the ground was like a freshly fluffed white comforter, the chairs loaded like cotton balls, the tree moved from the right side of the yard to behind the chairs and branches hanging with added weight and the fence barely distinguishable from sun bleached wood to snow covered my fingers could not produce what my mind wanted.  Everything was too white on white and I seemed unable to distinguish objects.

Then I discovered blue.  A now forgotten mixture of various blues, but once I put the first stroke of brush over canvas, this artist got excited as the fence took it’s rightful place in the back, backyard, and the chairs stayed on the ground without floating and the tree hovered it’s limbs like a blanket about to drape and protect.  Ahh, satisfaction.

…and then I put the brushes away.

With recent snows, though typical to west coast living, has come and gone in a flash, I’m still motivated to finish the painting and will pursue thinking about when I will do that.  Before spring and summer arrive I hope.

But not today.  Today is Boxing Day – known in Canada as the day after Christmas, traditionally known as the day one boxes up the gifts from yesterday.  But, for our family, this day may be the beginning of a new tradition when our group of 5 will gather to have brunch of Waffles, Crepes, Ham and chocolate, (lots of chocolate) exchange gifts, hang out….hopefully take a walk and eat a Mexican dinner.

Merry Christmas and happy Boxing Day…