Challenge 31 - Greeting a New Day

First of all I want to say a big Thank You to all who shared their paintings and took the time to provide comments. Our goal in the blog is to be able to help each other by providing critiques ... and we also learn by studying different interpretations of the subject by different artists … but I have discovered that being a part of this small group of nice friends also keeps me inspired, motivated and happy.

There were so many beautiful painting in the last challenge (Olympic Beach – Greece). I would really like to congratulate all the artists for their success in creating such captivating and marvelous paintings even with a very difficult subject. Each painting calls us to stop for a moment, relax and enjoy the splendour of nature all around us. I am reminded of the following lines from a book by Sir Martin Conway which I read sometime back -

"Some people can see beauty almost everywhere; they are conscious of beauty all day long. The gift of such perfect instinct for beauty comes by nature to a few. But it can be cultivated by almost all. ...And those are the really artistic souls... people who by nature and by education have acquired the power to see beauty in what they look at, and then to set it down on paper or canvas, or in some other material, so that other people can see it too."

About the composition


The boundaries of visual experience each painting gives us are limited only by the viewers sensitivity and  imagination. When you analyze this composition, please look behind the obvious, behind the front screen. Explore it. Let it talk to you and listen to its story carefully. As your eyes glide following the light from the left towards the right side of the composition ... recognize the scenes of the future, the present, and the past embedded in its dazzling new promises, calm reality and the subtle shadows of disappearing memories.

If your first thought is that this is just a beautiful rose, please look again. Listen, observe, imagine ... Feel its power and paint it the way you see and feel it. Each of us will see hidden messages in a different way, hear different whispers, but I know that all of us will enjoy it.

In this composition I would like to invite you to follow your imagination, let it fly beyond the obvious and discover your dreams visualized in the art you are about to create. It makes so much difference, and the final painting tells so much more without even noticing it.

Let me give you an example. When I look at this composition I see a whole life in it.

I see the future - dazzling lights in the distance,  promising a glorious life without worries and uncertainty. The faith that there is always another  beginning, far away, but close enough to follow the guiding lights illuminating the trails.

I see the present - each living day as it goes by ... full of fulfilled and also ...sometimes  missed expectations.

Then there is the past - vanishing memories and shadows of soon to be forgotten times.

If I am to put this composition in words it will be - Undeniably there is a hope, a new future about to begin which calling and waiting for us (the left side of the composition) ... there is the present reality (the clearly focused part of the composition) and ... there are hazy shadows of the past lost in the darkness of forgotten times (the right side of the composition).

Please send a photo of your painting latest by Sunday,  Sep 16. The next painting reference will be posted on Sep 17.