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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Long Shadows on Longmire Road

"Long Shadows on Longmire Road" 16x20" Oil on stretched canvas

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 "Dreaming or awake, we perceive only events that have meaning to us." —Jane Roberts

This stretch of Longmire Road, where I walk my dog in the early evenings, never ceases to stop me dead in my tracks. If you think I'm making this up, here's the photo I snapped on my phone. I admit I've taken a little artistic license in the painting and did push the colors a tad, but isn't it an enchanted spot?

This is a place where if you become very quiet and listen carefully you can hear deep within a melody of gratefulness begin to arise.

It's also at this mysterious and serene time of day, that two age-old antagonists—light and darkness—enter the arena for another showdown. Light grabs hold tight, while the determined opponent attacks in quick jabs, stabs, pulls and stretches. When little resistance is left, darkness delivers one final death defying blow that flattens into dark rivers and flat puddles of flickering shadow. Light, admitting defeat, lays lifeless until dawn.                                                                                            "In the twilight of life, God will not judge us on our earthly possessions and human success, but rather on how much we have loved." —John of the Cross

       Thanks for coming along on my walk today.
       nancy  
       
       © 2013 nancy parsons

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To see more of my art or to contact me: 
Online Gallery  • E-mail  • Graphic Design Studio

Out On A Limb

"Out On A Limb" 8x10" oil on gessobord

Painting from a photo by photographer and avid hiker, Angela Fletcher.

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"Life's not the breaths you take, but the moments that take breath away."—George Strait

I didn't get to paint or post last week due to the graphic design work load along with an attack of annual oak pollen crud. But, I'm back in the saddle now...or at least have a paint brush in my hand again. 

I love the George Strait quote above. It was the answer to yesterday's Celebrity Cipher puzzle in our local newspaper. By my own admission, I am a Cipher, Jumble, Crossword addict. 

When it comes to choosing a landscape to paint, I literally can have the breath knocked right out of me when encountering beautiful scenery sitting in perfect light. It's then, stopped dead in my tracks, that I hear the signal telling me I have got to paint it. I may be out on a limb here, but maybe it's the other way around? Perhaps when a landscape grabs my eye and pulls so strongly at my heart strings, the scene is really choosing me out everybody else in the world, at that one moment in time, to paint its portrait? Hmm...What a honor and a joy to be an artist!

Thanks for pausing for a breath or two.

nancy 

© 2013 nancy parsons

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To see more of my art or to contact me: 
Online Gallery  • E-mail  • Graphic Design Studio

Trail Ponder

"Trail Ponder" 6x6" oil on gessobord

"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us." 

— Henry David Thoreau

This is a painting of Lee—one of my six amazing sisters—seen hiking in Montana a number of years ago. I've been holding onto this photo wanting to paint it, but the lighting was so dark I wasn't sure I could pull it off. Photos always make the darkest areas appear unnaturally dark, so I had to accommodate. 

I love today’s quote reminding me how we are all walking day-by-day on paths through wild untamed and unfamiliar woods carrying our bags. The past we have somehow survived, while the future we ponder and sometimes worry over what lies around the next bend. But for right now, at this very moment, we are comforted by the distant hoot of an owl, the caw of a crow from somewhere unseen in the tree overhead, and the sounds of water licking cold stones smooth along reed filled banks. Here, the dabbled light casts translucent blue and violet patterns like fine tatted lace on moss covered trunks and limbs. While there, blinding beams of sun slash without mercy through rocks and boulders in its path; leaves on branches shimmer on wafts of musty dank breezes. While underfoot, the sound of crunching twigs and dry grasses march in perfect time to each beat of a gladdened heart. All that surrounds is holding and hugging this sacred presence of “now.” Grab it quick before it to disappears into past!

 

Thanks for meandering in today.

© 2013 nancy parsons

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To see more of my art or to contact me: 
Gallery  •  Blog  • NEW Website • E-mail  • Graphic Design Studio

Road Less Traveled

"Road Less Traveled" 6x6" oil on canvas panel, inspired by the photo "Curve in the Road" by: Angela Fletcher

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"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."

— Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

   

I have to say this has been the story of my life, although not always by choice. Somehow I just never could find the path of least resistance. Life has not been easy but discovering all of the not-so-ordinary along the way has made my travels profoundly rich in experience. 

There is an old Zen saying, "To a man who knows nothing, Mountains are Mountains, Waters are Waters and Trees are Trees. But when he has studied and knows a little, Mountains are no longer Mountains, Water is no longer Water, Trees no longer Trees. But when he has thoroughly understood, Mountains again are Mountains, Waters are Waters and Trees are Trees." 

As an artist my personal goal is to grow in my capacity for perception of nature's inexhaustible supply. I hope that never changes and that this road goes on forever.

Thanks for joining in my journey today and for viewing my painting. 

nancy

To view all of my available paintings in my gallery click here http://www.dailypaintworks.com/Artists/nancy-parsons-122  * Sold pieces are marked with a red dot.

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 business: www.graphicdesigngroup.net

Pond-ering Thoreau

"Pond-ering Thoreau" 8x10" Oil on gessobord

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"A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature." - 9. The Ponds, Walden, Henry David Thoreau

Did you think you were looking at this upside down? This abstract landscape was painted from another one of my friend Angela's inspiring photos, capturing looking glass reflections of aqua sky and surrounding forest. Sparkling on the silent stillness of another "Walden's" pond, the aqueous pool was dotted with a flotilla of lily pads, all set a sail in the early morning chill. A bare low-lying branch with willowy outstretched arms, hovers just above half submerged logs breaking the water's surface, and forming bridges for sun loving turtles.

And where was Monet for all this?

Thanks for pausing and reflecting on my work today.

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

Darkness Into Light

"Darkness Into Light" 8x6" Oil on stretched canvas

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I have talked about my friend Angela who goes on hikes in the woods every Sunday, and then sends me amazing photos to paint. Well, this painting was taken from another one of her recent images.

I was especially drawn to the way the photo was taken from amongst the dark shadows in the foreground and looking out onto this quiet sanctuary of a watery cove that fades off into the distance. It seems to invite us to also step out of the darkness around us, into the pure misty-morning light that, like a curtain being suddenly drawn open, magically reveals reflections of color and life...our invitation into the pristine freshness at the birth of another day.

Like shattering light through stain glass, I decided to paint this one using only rectangular slashes of color, and a new color for each stroke, so no two strokes of color were exactly the same hue.

Thanks for entering my world today. 

nancy