With just a day before the Winter’s Solstice and the days of more light, I want to share this newest painting I’ve been working on. I painted it with celebration in mind, and oddly enough sadness.

Celebration of Life.

Celebration of Light.

Somehow they go together.

The womanly figure in this painting is dancing with a green scarf, celebrating the life that she carries in her womb (indicated with a swirl on her tummy).

Celebration of Life

Sometimes, as in this case, my art takes a turn inward. Many times I paint subjects that make me laugh or things that I find mysterious or beautiful. Occasionally, I allow my emotions to rule the brush. This is an example of my emotions at work.

It seems the older I get the more emotional I become. While I’ve always wore my heart on my sleeve, the last decade or so it has nearly become absurd. I guess if I think about it, the birth of my son Asher was the beginning of me noticing a shift.

I’m growing more and more empathetic, making living in the world a roller coaster of emotions for me. Seasonal Affective Disorder seems to be something I’m encountering more often as well. My poor family never knows who they’ll encounter as my hormones have turned against me in this perimenopausal state I find myself in.

I mentioned at the beginning the painting is about celebration and sadness. The celebration is of life, obviously. But the sadness… The sadness is what I felt a twinge of while I painted and pulled out the woman figure from the squiggles and lines. Sadness for time and how fast it slides through our fingers. Sadness knowing my child is no longer needing me like he did and sadness knowing the time left is fleeting. Sadness for the life I was not able to birth, a miscarriage before Asher… a girl. I know that because she came to me in a dream. Asher is my Rainbow Baby (a baby that is born following a miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death or infant loss).

Maybe celebration is born because of the sadness we knew. We celebrate because we know how fragile life really is.

Tomorrow is a true celebration… the Winter’s Solstice and the coming of longer days afterwards! I find myself dreaming of spring and summer during these last few dark and dreary days we’ve been having.

She is painted on heavy hot press 10″x14″ Arches watercolor paper and really I just helped her come alive while listening to Lisa Gerrard. A figure has shown herself to me dancing with a scarf, so I am assisting the painting into life. Music deeply affects my art, this song playing as I paint is called “Sacrifice”.

“Celebration of Life” may have a companion piece, I’ve got another one started with similar looks and colors but no figure in it yet. Time will tell. Christmas is just 5 days away and I’m rushing to finish a few things before I find out where the next painting is going.

I’ll place her in my shop soon.

Learn more about me on the ‘About’ page in the menu at the top. I’m an artist – a painter mostly and an avid gardener. I paint a variety of subjects including birds, koi fish, my gardens, ponds and flowers as well as anything having to do with nature especially trees and tropical scenes. I also enjoy painting abstracts and have started creating more and more of them. My most favorite thing to try to achieve in my painting is mystery.

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