“Reflections of Paradise” SOLD
1/2 sheet Watercolour Diptych
Copyright 2009 Jean Burman
Grace is the human quality we all hope to have when life delivers us [inevitably as it will] into circumstances for which we might previously have thought we would be unprepared and unable to cope. It almost always comes as a huge surprise then… when we are given the courage and strength to prevail in spite of it. It is grace which allows us to smile while deep inside our heart is breaking. Grace allows us to endure. Life is not a steady race. Not for any of us. But it is grace which will see us through.
It is grace which has found me
It is grace which will carry me though…
Art sustains me. And writing. Both are steady occupations in an unsteady world. And I am happy with my progress. I am learning to let go of outcomes. To let things be.
I am learning that life is greater than the sum of all it’s many (un)equal parts. It requires us to submit to the big picture. For what is life if not a big picture with many elements?
Composition… perspective…. value… colour… vibrancy. [Eloquence].
Sometimes the words tumble out and the paint flows easily… other times I struggle. Some works will never make it. They were never meant to be. I let them go. But it’s never a wasted effort. For the one great truth in life is that without failure there can be no success. No progress.
And the greatest joy of all will be when the sum of all our failure and success delivers to our easel the masterpiece that [in hindsight] was our life’s best work.
Below is the work of my youngest student yet. Four and a half year old Lilli painted with me for an hour this morning at the Reef House. She was a fast learner and needed only a little bit of help with the basic sketch. She simply “got it”… and even remembered from yesterday me telling another student to turn the brush on it’s side to get the right angle for the striations on the trunk of the palm tree. Amazing! I love to teach.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
And you’re a born teacher, Jean, I’m sure. Somebody once asked me which I preferred, teaching or “doing,” and I replied that I couldn’t separate them and couldn’t imagine having to give up one or the other.
Thanks John! I’ve only done a few classes so far at Reef House but I think it could develop into something. It started almost inadvertently with people casually expressing a wish to (someday) paint. You already know what my response to that was! So I printed up a sign and launched off from there. So far so good! Fingers crossed. LOL
PS I paint a lot of coconut trees out here! LOL This is the third in a series of island triptychs. They are made from imagination… despite the fact that I am virtually on location. I don’t know… somehow the reality of the scene interests me less than the atmosphere of the place. Yesterday the ocean was a bit turbid… with sediment whipped up by a strong south easterly. The sea is sometimes like that here. But in my mind’s eye… the ocean is always tropical on that one perfect day of the year! Funny ’bout that (((chuckles)))
It rained today. Just enough to lay the last of the dust storm… and put out the smoke fires on the surrounding hillsides. We need rain. And soon we will have it as the stormy season comes in ahead of the wet. Oddly… I am looking forward to painting storm clouds and the moodiness of the wet season this year. Will just have to wait and see just how wet it gets. And before long I guess we’ll be complaining. Grin.