...inspiration...

"Fiddletown ~ Chinese General Store"

One of my good gallery friends and I were talking last Saturday.  He told me that my painting has changed.  He said that since I painted this General Store painting, my work has been improved. I've been considering this comment.  Sometimes an artist can be too close to their own work to really see what is happening with it. I have been painting long enough that I am past that stage where it is a struggle to know how to paint something. I am past the stage where I don't choose the right pigments or brush. Now, I am struggling to find enough time to paint all the subjects that inspire me! I love sunlight through snow-covered branches, and the way the shadows lay darker near the trunk of an oak tree. I am enthralled by the contrasts of back-lit blossoms against an old wooden fence. I want to paint the reflective cerulean blue on the wings of ravens. I want to paint the way John Muir writes. Inspiration is not always visual. It can be deeply spiritual. I feel it inside ~ it bubbles up from my core. 
How do you paint hope? By adding prayers to every brushstroke.

...it is true that you can see an Artist's soul through her work....