Destiny Awaits

I wanted to experiment with some of the collage techniques I've been reading about. I got the idea for this painting from a photo I took of my husband riding out of "Sleepy Hollow" at Whiting Park, where we mountain bike. As the name "Sleepy Hollow" suggests, we were coming out of a dark underbrush of trees, and he was silhouetted against the light.

I'm not so talented in getting the words on the page like some of you talented writers, but my thought behind this painting is how a person is on a journey of life with its ups and downs.  The biker is continuing his search toward the light or his purpose in life.  The butterflies are his unseeing support, showing the way, guiding him on. 

I started out with the thought of painting a sports inspirational painting, but the butterflies make it too feminine for a guy and not feminine enough for a girl.  Maybe next time, it will be a woman biker.  Anyways...just rolling along.  Love to hear from you.

Madison Collage

Madison gets a collage and notecards, too.
I pretty much copied same version as Sunnyman with a little variation.

Madison

Because the "Sunny Man" was such a big hit at Christmas, I had an opportunity to paint another beloved dog, Madison. 

Looking at his pictures, especially the one with the Birthday Prince hat on his head, shows how much this family loved him.  I've heard wonderful stories about special dogs, and you can see, Madison was one of them.

Kira's Wings

Have you ever had a flight dream?  As a child, I had always wanted to fly, and I do remember a few dreams of flight.  I'm told they are a good thing. 

This collage is based on that idea all starting from a group of girls jumping at the beach.  I snagged the picture from my daughter Kristen's photo stash.  The girls were all in silhouette against the beach and sky.  I just inverted them to white and put them on a pink background.  The daisies are from another picture by Kristen changed to black and white, which was copied on with gel medium.  The wording was inspired from a children's book I have about a girl who tells everyone she's going to fly.  She does fly, but only in her dreams.

The group of girls are from my niece, Kira's 14th birthday party.  I had thought I might give this to her as a memory of her party after a little bit of fixing.