My Father's World

"My Father's World"

12" x 16"

Pastel

Earlier last week I received a phone call from an artist friend here in Omaha inviting me to enter one piece of artwork with his in a collaborative artist show in Lincoln, Nebraska.  My friend described the piece he was entering.  His was a mixed-media work on the seven days of creation from Genesis 1.  This work had won Best of Show in the Bellevue Artists Association Silver Palette Show last fall.  I got to thinking that my cowboy/western/horse drawings wouldn't really theme well with his work.  Thankfully I had done a recent 5" x 7" study in oils of a mountain and river scene from hiking in British Columbia.  

 I had already worked out the composition and value decisions, but wanted to try it in pastels.  So I prepared my support panel with a finish of marble dust gesso and sketched out the composition.

Then I proceeded to bring out the concepts I had in my head.  I was thinking about what I wanted this painting to say.  What was my focus?  What did I need to emphasize?  What did I need to edit out of the scene?  One group of painters that I greatly enjoy studying is the Hudson River School of artists.  This group was America's first major art movement.  They depicted transcendent, light-filled scenes of nature and the wilderness landscapes.  Artists of this group were Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, Jasper Cropsey, and Frederic Church.  They influenced a second generation of two very well-known painters of the west, Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran.  So in my work, my desire was to bring that same transcendent light-filled landscape.  I worked on it all day last Saturday and finished around 7 p.m.  I got it framed this week and it is now on its way to the Lincoln show called Visual Voices.  It will be on exhibit there in one of the galleries at the large Lincoln Berean Church until Easter.  The public is able to view the artwork in the various galleries there from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily.

The title for this piece comes from the well-known hymn "This is My Father's World", written by Maltbie Babcock who lived from 1858 - 1901.  It's words were in my thoughts as I worked away applying the pastel to the surface.  

This is My Father's World

This is my Father's world, and to my listening ears

All nature sings and round me rings the music of the spheres.

This is my Father's world:  I rest me in the thought

Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas---His hand the wonders wrought.

This is my Father's world, the birds their carols raise,

The morning light, the lily white, declare their Maker's praise.

This is my Father's world:  He shines in all that's fair;

In the rustling grass I hear Him pass, He speaks to me everywhere.

This is my Father's world, O let me ne'er forget

That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the Ruler yet.

This is my Father's world;  The battle is not done;

Jesus who died shall be satisfied, and earth and heaven be one.

That's a bucket load of joy, comfort, and great hope shining right there!!

Be brave and courageous!