For the Beauty of the Earth

The Boss of Yellowstone

9" x 12" study in pastel

Over the past month I have experienced a lot of windshield time in my sturdy little 1989 Ford Bronco.  My travels have taken me from Omaha through the Scottsbluff National Monument, to the National Museum of Wildlife Art in the Grand Tetons, to the edge of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone in Yellowstone National Park, through western Montana, all across Washington, rush hour in Seattle, to British Columbia, around the North Cascade Range, and back down into Cody, Wyoming.  Whew...catch your breath!  Today I am here in Cody to spend the day studying at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West.  The Center contains 5 different museums and a research library.  The museum I am most eager to explore is the Whitney Western Art Museum.www.centerofthewest.org

Sketching out my idea

Putting in the first layer

While traveling and beholding so much of our beautiful America, I have enjoyed listening to my CD of "The John Rutter Collection" sung by the Cambridge Singers.  One of my favorite songs on this album is "For the Beauty of the Earth"  /www.youtube.com/watch?  v=qpEbQGsPqHE .   It is a joyous celebration of all the many reasons we have to be thankful.  Listening to this song helped me to express how my heart felt to be seeing all the grandeur both small and great.  This world is full of foreboding news and uncertainties. These are realities, but how refreshing to also be reminded of the God of all creation who is Sovereign over it all....He is the maker of all these many mountain peaks that I've seen.  David said in  Psalm 95:4 that the mountain peaks belong to God.  Take that into your day!

Northern Cascade Range

Be brave and courageous!

Go and Find It!

(Mt. Shuskan, WA  8" x 10" study in oil)

Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem called "The Explorer"  describing that elusive "something" that compels an adventurer on..."Something hidden.  Go and find it.  Go and look behind the Ranges-----Something lost behind the Ranges.  Lost and waiting for you.  Go!"

To some of us, that is an irresistible invitation to the open road and adventure!  To what lies beyond...to the lure of the unknown!  Kenneth Grahame sums it quite well and humorously in The Wind in the Willows when Toad cries, ..."The open road, the dusty highway, the heath, the common, the hedgerows, the rolling downs!  Camps, villages, towns, cities!  Here today, up and off to somewhere else tomorrow!  Travel, change, interest, excitement!  The whole world before you, and a horizon that's always changing!"  

(North Cascades/Washington)

Brian Tracy describes the explorer as a traveler....one who has an incredible dissatisfaction with routine and normal living.  A question I often ask myself is "Why be ordinary?"  Settling for ho-hum and status quo isn't an option.  Sure, there's risk involved.  You are stretched way beyond your comfort zone.  Hard work and difficult circumstances demand ongoing perseverance.  But there is also joy in the journey, in the actual processes themselves, and exhilaration at the end of finally "summiting"  the goal.  I love the challenging way Henry Longfellow expressed it in a poem...."Those heights by great men, won and kept, Were not achieved by sudden flight; But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upwards in the night."

(Mt. Baker, Washington- North Cascade Range)

One great adventure is open to all of us.  Christ said, "Follow me!"  His disciples left all to do just that.  Their answer to that call turned the world upside down....changing even the policy of the Roman empire.  That call had a high cost but those disciples never looked back once they committed.  They went beyond ordinary, safe, and mediocre.  They experienced LIFE!  

Lucy Swindoll wrote in her book I Married Adventure about that choice herself..."The choice was mine and mine alone.  I decided to go for the latter.  I determined to do whatever it took to keep my spirits up.  I took God at His word that He would be with me and take care of me, that He'd go before me and straighten the crooked places, that He'd be my Comforter, Friend, and Great Physician.  Something about that choice had a rush in it for me.  An edge.  An excitement.  Each day, I couldn't wait to see what would happen!"

(Mt. Shuskan - North Cascade Range)

So...what are we waiting for?!  Strap on your backpack, coil your rope, grip your pick axe.

Something hidden.  For you.  Christ calls.  Go and find it!

Be brave and courageous!

Water-Blogged

 (Deer in Yellowstone National Park/watercolor study)

 What is with water?!  We are drawn to it like a magnet.  Reflections of sunlight on a lake or the sound of thundering falls catch our attention.  Without water we would not be alive.  It sustains all life on this planet.  Viewing a well-watered garden is a pleasure.  

We can observe water in a variety of ways...fountains, lakes, rivers, oceans, geysers, rain, snow, and waterfalls.  

(Upper Yellowstone Falls)

Water nurtures life for plants, wildlife, and us humans.  Around water, life teems with activity. 

One is reminded of the words Jesus spoke when He stated that no one would thirst if they drank of the living water that He offers.  In John 4:14 He said, "But those who drink the water that I give will never be thirsty again.  It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life." (NLT)  

I like that!  Fresh....bubbling.  A spring!  A constant flow!  I want a well-watered life, don't you?!  Thirst is quenched in Him...life in Him becomes deeply satisfying.

(Mt. Baker from Anacortes, WA)

 ( Happy little turtles on the water log)

This is a little pastel study I did this week...first here is the underpainting.  It doesn't appear to make much sense.  Just like life.  

But as the artist develops the composition, the artwork begins to make more sense, often not looking anything like it started out.

One has to trust the process that it will hopefully be the desired result in the end.  

Okay, well that's it for this week.  Did I get you wet?!  :)  Go ahead....dive in!

Be brave and courageous!

Yellowstone Wildlife & Limited Capacity

What caught my eye in Yellowstone National Park last week, along with all the stunning scenery, were these two dignified little schnauzers.  They seemed to do everything in timed tandem...hilarious!  They indulged me politely in conversation and a pose.  Their fur was coal black in the sunlight as they sat on a log bench along the south rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.  Perhaps they were a bit edgy about the high bear alert in the park that week!

My travels the past week have taken me from the monumental Scottsbluff area of Nebraska

 to Jackson, Wyoming where I got to tour the National Museum of Wildlife Art, the Grand Teton range,

 Yellowstone National Park,

 and across Montana, Idaho, and Washington into mountainous British Columbia.  So many miles and so many thoughts to think as I beheld and drove!

I was overcome much of the trip with the awareness that I just couldn't grasp all that I was seeing.  I felt so inadequate to comprehend the beauty and the vastness of all that was before me.  I kept trying to absorb as much as I could, but was left with the sense that I couldn't get it all within me.

  When faced with such immensity, beauty, and grandeur we come face to face with the reality of our limited capacity to enter into full joy, comprehension, and sensory experience of what we are beholding.  It is then that I am reminded that we are made for eternity.  There is always that yearning, that haunting for something more that lurks in our earthly experiences of beauty and truth.  We know too well that we are made for something more. 

 These are the avenues in this world that point us towards the Creator of all this beauty and that to enjoy relationship with Him is the highest and most deeply satisfying experience for the human soul.  All I could do as I beheld this grandeur was to be in the moment and express my heartfelt worship to God.  Someday I WILL have the capacity to enjoy fully forever what I struggle to get just a small grip on now!  All I can say is "Bring it on!"

I asked a tourist to take this last photo of me at a meaningful scene at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.  This particular location is called Artists' Point and is where Thomas Moran painted some of his awesome paintings of Yellowstone.  

It is a challenge and reminder to me to continue to study, research, and practice techniques so that I, too, can bring the beauty of this world before many people's eyes as Thomas Moran did.  In a world that is currently in such turmoil, we need to be reminded of better things and refreshed by that!

Be brave and courageous!