a quote

from Leanne Cadden:

Beauty is everywhere, but one may see the beautiful view and the other sees a dirty window. You have the power within you to choose what you see, what you think and what you paint.

It's Spring!!

We got some snow today on this first day of Spring, but the sun was warm in sheltered places. Even the sharp wind felt fresh and exciting. It was a good day to celebrate the equinox. Standing on the cusp of another cycle of days, I found myself filled with joy and anticipation.

Here are some quotes to celebrate the season...

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade. ~Charles Dickens

Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night. ~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke

Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush. ~Doug Larson

Spring shows what God can do with a drab and dirty world. ~Virgil A. Kraft

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt. ~Margaret Atwood

Pied Beauty

A poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89). One of my favorites. He writes how I wish to paint.


Pied Beauty

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.