I know the last few posts I’ve made make my wife and I seem like we are the real traveler set. This is truly not the case and a very interesting scenario for me because as soon as I arrived back from Quinns I attended a quick conference and now off on a business trip to Alabama.
First of this strip starts with a beautiful morning drive to Bozeman Montana where we will be flying out. The morning views… just gorgeous.
Montana has always captured my heart, even when I don’t have my camera close I cant help but snap shots with my phone. You never know what will turn into the next painting or what sort of reference will save the day in one of your other pieces. I told my friend who drove us “One day I will learn to paint like that. But I guess you will never out-paint God,” That got a small chuckle from him. Extra point scored for the chuckle.
I am clueless what makes me so fasinated and willing to be in air ports. They are noisy, sometimes hot. Long boring waits, but reality for me means another adventure. Before I left the house today I left a note for my wife on our chalk board. “Any trip without you feels empty, like it is missing something incredibly important. So, I will race back as quick as I can, so I can take you on our next trip. While I am gone I pray God gives you joy and excitement for life, and when I return, I hope he multiplies it X2.” My best adventures have always had her by my side. So while I enjoy these moments. They dont hold as much meaning without her close.
It didn’t take me long to find a beautiful view, so time to dig out the one option many folks dread. I grabbed my watercolors, and just winged it. Slowly just adding color on top of color as I have always done. Truth be told many people have called watercolor a very unforgiving medium. Which is actually true. But, I think that is mainly because it is confused for how it should be used, and if approched in a spicific way, allows you room to “sneak up to the results”.
Back before I got into this whole “painting” thing I used to only draw caricatures which saved me in most cases from drawing what I feared the most… For some their worst fear is Public speaking, mine however, backgrounds. Doesn’t it just send chills down your back?
Now that I’m doing this painting thing suddenly backgrounds have become the center of my attention, and yes without a shadow of a doubt it is a whole different animal. Beautiful and intense in so many ways. As we moved to our gate I continued with this little watercolor chicken scratch and on a scale from 1 – 10 this piece rates a “meh” from me. But it did reopen my eyes to an art form I have not touched in probably a year or two. It really is a beautiful art form.
Admittedly the Dallas Texas airport only rated 1 lone star for me. Messy, challenging internet connectivity, it just felt rough. Not to mention the windows to see out were better off used as mirrors to see in.
At first I wanted to blame it on moisture, maybe humidity? But no they were literally brown and murky. And it quickly made the day catch up with me and I felt a pug sitting across the way expressed the emotions of many of the people around me quite clearly.
From this moment forward the work began. As I finish this blog post the following day has past, we are in our second hotel, and my feet have blisters on their blisters from the important work we are doing. But as I like to say, that is a story, for another time. God bless!