Billie in the Bluebonnets

"Billie", Oil on gessobord, 9x12"
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"Sometimes,  when I see my granddaughters make small discoveries of their own, I wish I were  a child."  —Dr. Seuss

This portrait was painted for a dear friend of her beautiful granddaughter, Billie, posed in one of the many fields of bluebonnets here in East Texas every spring.

I haven't painted much over the past year or so. I tend to beat myself up for not picking up my brushes, but have come to accept the fact that there really is a time and a season for everything. Nothing stays the same, things come and go at certain unforeseen periods of our lives and we are powerless to try and resist.

I feel my soul has been wondering in a dry desert...which is not a bad thing. I recognized the need for desert time and gave myself permission to honor that space. I believe this has been a period of gestation and rebirth. I am hopeful this is the budding of a new spring with renewed energy, creativity and discovery. The best is yet to be!

Thank you for viewing.
-nancy

To see more of my art click here, or one one of these additional links: Online Gallery • Email  • Website  •  Graphic Design Studio • Saatchi Gallery • Fine Art America

Wonderstruck

"Here's Looking at You Kid" 10x8" oil on gessobord

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"It does take a certain measure of humility to be wonderstruck. At the same time, though, it is the highest form of intelligence, because there my reason opens up to the mystery." — Aristotle

If you've seen one sunflower, you've seen them all. Sadly, this becomes the undefining of life; turning life into a short list of categories rather than expanding into an endless list of awe inspiring coincidences and surprises.

We rush from here to there, from one obligation to the next, from one commitment or necessity to another, never aware of all the little things we pass by day after day that never get seen or acknowledged. Instead of being revealed and delighted in bit by bit for the little slivers of mystery and beauty they are, life gets converted into one vast blurry golden field we zoom pass at 70 miles per hour never getting noticed nor experienced. 

Stop whatever you are doing right now...slam on the brakes... see the one golden sunflower among the masses. Each blossom a transient sliver, struggling in a field packed among a myriad of other dark round faces, crushed by the weight, yet each one as unique and miraculous as the next. Quick! Grab a hold of one, look into its eyes before it dissolves into the past. See it's beauty, feel its strength, hope and sheer willpower to survive as it stretches to join its source.

"To see one blade of grass at a time rather than a mountainside of green makes every element of life important." 

— Sister Joan Chittister, Benedictine nun, from The Art of Life, Monastic Wisdom for Every day Life.

Thank you for slowing down to smell my sunflower today!
nancy

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Graceful Grazer

"Graceful Grazer" 16x20" Oil on stretched canvas

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"Horses make a landscape look beautiful."

—Alice Walker

Horses are so beautiful...they don't even look real. This landscape had little redeeming value, but this stepper totally charmed me.

I came across this beauty while searching for a place to park at Old Town Spring. This is a 1900s historic railroad town featuring antiques, galleries, gift/specialty shops and restaurants, located not far from where I live. 

I stopped there briefly over St. Patrick's Day weekend while the whistle-stop was crammed full of tourists. I had to park way in the back on a field near the railroad tracks. As I was getting out of my car, I looked up and was stopped dead in my tracks by this graceful creature grazing in a small pasture behind a little cabin/house. I'm lucky I didn't get shot walking around—basically trespassing—to snap some photos. Oh well, what's life if it's not a daring adventure? I had to take a chance, or miss an opportunity that might never trot my way again. 

Thanks for please not turning me over to the authorities. :  )

nancy
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Morning Mindfulness

"Morning Mindfulness" 10x8" oil on canvas board

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"Awake, harp and lyre!
     I will awaken the dawn."
— Psalm 57: 8

For some reason, I have been waking up at 3:00 a.m. most every morning lately, unable to go back to sleep...UGH! When this happens, I've started trying to apply an idea gathered from a beautiful little book I am reading titled sevensacredpauses.

The night watch vigil (midnight until dawn) is one of the noted times for sacred pauses; a time to rise from sleep to wait in silence with purpose, patience, hope and love. I don't think I'd ever wake up like this on purpose, but when I can't sleep this different take on the situation has turned an annoying negative into one of humbled surrender and acceptance.

When my friend Angela showed me her photo of this harvested hayfield, taken on a recent foggy morn, I couldn't wait to get my fingers on a brush. The field seems to instinctively understand the mystery of deep listening, watching, and waiting patiently in faithful vigilance for the fog to lift and sun to reveal the new day.

Although I am by nature a morning person, this quote from Thomas Merton speaks volumes. "It is necessary for me to see the first point of light which begins to dawn. It is necessary to be present alone at the resurrection of Day, in the blank silence when the sun appears."
  

Thank you for celebrating a gift of ordinary life with me today.
nancy

© 2012 nancy parsons
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Morning Melody

"Morning Melody" 8x10" oil on gessobord panel

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"The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star."

— Henry David Thoreau

This scene is the same field as yesterday's painting, only earlier in the day. It's that melodious time at dawn when mystery still shrouds the earth in a layer of ghostly atmosphere. The time of day when soft glow of morning rays begin sweeping away lingering bits of mist and haze. Light streaks across clouds and expanse of sky with watery-tints of pastel, shaking awake dew-covered loam lingering under silvery blankets of web. The promise of another day; the birds see..no wonder they can't help but sing.

Thanks for dropping by this morning and viewing my painting. 
nancy
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SOLD -Hidden Treasure

"Hidden Treasure" 6x6" oil on canvas panel

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 "I have seen light break through to illuminate a small field for a while and gone my way and forgotten it. But that was the pearl of great prize, the one field that had the treasure in it..." 

— R.S. Thomas, "The Bright Field"

There is a field bordering a section of Longmire road a few miles from my house. Over the years, I have driven by hundreds of times, always feeling there was something special at work there. Recently I was driving by the field—early one morning—returning from an appointment just as the sun was breaking across the field and illuminating baled rounds of golden treasure, setting the field and surrounding tree tops in a fiery glow. I was so excited I almost ran off the road! It was one of those magical moments. I wanted to stop dead in my tracks and pull out my paints, but all I could manage was to pull out my cell phone and blindly snap. Luckily, my friend Angela went back a few days later and shot the photo above. 

I love hay bales. To me they are a profound symbol of our own bounty. All we have ever known and have been over a life time, gathered up into the harvest. The past not gone, it's all there carefully rolled up inside and held tight in layers of hugs gathered and readied, waiting to be snapped away.  

Thanks for viewing my painting. 
nancy
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Windswept

"Windswept" 9x12" oil on canvas panel

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“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.”

 — Rabindranath Tagore

I snapped this photo at the Edward Sargent Wildlife Area lookout point in Chama, NM. The reserve is located at the base of the San Juan Mountains and covers 20,000 acres of wild high country extending to the Colorado border. 

A short hike up a rocky mountain path lined with wildflowers leads to this viewing spot...the best place to watch elk graze. The herds follow the river into this area yearly during the summer migration. I was told if you get here right as the sun is setting, you can sometimes can hear the male elk bugling his mating call. It wasn't quite sunset while I was there, so I never saw or heard the elk, but loved the view. My spirit was filled with awe and wonder at the billowy mounds of fluffy white clouds picnicking across that enormous cobalt blue blanket of a sky. It was a visual feast.

Hope you enjoyed the scenery. Thanks for viewing my painting. 

nancy
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To see more of my art or to contact me:  

Gallery  •  Blog  • NEW Website • E-mail  • Graphic Design Studio

Just Horsing Around

"Just Horsing Around" 10x8" Oil on gessobord

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I was really jazzed to enter this weeks DPW Challenge, since I have never painted a horse before. Guess I've just never had the opportunity to photograph one in the wild. I have included above, the photograph we were asked to paint for the challenge.

I think I enjoyed painting the grass as much as the horse. I tried to break the grass up into an interesting pattern, and was happy with the mosaic, patchwork-look that emerged. My personal challenge is to always try to keep my brush strokes as loose as possible. I had been working on a large commissioned piece that had to be rendered very tightly, so this was a welcome change of pace for this old mare now free to roam in new pastures. 

Thanks for stopping to graze awhile in my pasture. ; )

nancy

My blog: www.headondownthehighway.blogspot.com

E-mail: njparsons@suddenlink.net

My books  NEW 2012 Daily Planner and Head on Down the Highway A Blog Book

My graphic design: www.graphicdesigngroup.net