It's Sunday already, y'all. Isn't it unbelievable how fast a weekend goes? The fact that it's the Christmas weekend didn't change that at all. Lucky me, I have another couple of days off of work - yay! Unfortunately, that did not give me more time to prepare my entry for this week's weekend engagement challenge, because that is due in just a few hours.
This time it is all about creativity. And how could I say 'no' to that topic? After all most of my posts here on the blog concentrate on something that I have created, either a painting or a photo.
Of Galen's 5 (!) choices I picked #2:
Using me, another hive user you know or yourself in a nature-setting as your subject: Create an artwork using pencils, paints, digital, charcoal, pen and ink or any other media of your choice, take a photo and post about it - Tell us about the various elements of your artwork and what inspired them. It doesn't have to look like me or the other person exactly ok? Just make it up as you go - There's no wrong way to do it.
For the past week or so I had this urge to use my acrylic paints. Perfect, I thought, for the coming long weekend. On Christmas Eve I started with the initial sketch and then moved on to the first acrylic paints on Christmas Day. Today I finished the painting.
So, why did I choose option #2 and not #1? Well, the reason was one of Galen's previous posts. In this post, he reflects on his personal Hive highlights of 2021. There's a lot of good stuff in his post but this passage here is the one that inspired me to my painting:
Have you ever watched a fire until it burns so low that it becomes just a few glowing embers within a pile of cooling ash? I do a lot of camping and spend a lot of time in the wilderness so I've done so - usually whilst gazing overhead at the canopy of hundreds of thousands of stars. It's a beautiful moment. However when a person's inner-flame burns low it's not so beautiful, especially for the person whose flame has become an ember.
Thus I chose to paint Galen (or rather a wonky version of him - LOL) kicking back by the campfire, which got totally out of control a.k.a. way too many flames, and the sparks would lit the dead tree on fire.
Naturally, I placed Galen into the Australian outback not that it is where he lives but he is an Aussie so... We have a dead tree, open grass/dirt land, and, of course, Uluru and, Galen and his campfire under a 'canopy of hundreds of thousands of stars'.
Minus any deadly or creepy Australian critters (or the gazillions of flies in that area) I would have totally loved to stargaze there.
For those interested, this was painted on/with
- 11x14" 300 g Strathmore Mixed Media paper (vellum)
- Golden, Arteza, and other brand acrylics
Cheers,
(Ocean)Bee
Unless otherwise noted, copyright for all photos, dividers and gifs ©Oceanbee|ImagesByCW