The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes,
Marcel Proust
but in having new eyes.
My latest painting is a new, smaller version of a scene that I have painted once before. I find the image and the idea equally appealing ~ a monarch butterfly resting on Queen Anne’s Lace, as if by royal appointment.
Don’t ask me where this is. It’s not important. It was late summer, early in the morning. The air was damp and the mountains were obscured by low cloud. We didn’t mind; there was beauty around every corner and we weren’t in a hurry. As the clouds began to lift and catch the light, the mood began to shift and the river tumbled on as if this had been nothing extraordinary.
A small, gold bauble,
Lightly flitting here and there,
Making Christmas bright.
Wherever you find yourself this Christmas, whatever the circumstances, it is still the season of love and light and family. May the holidays be whatever you need them to be ~ and wishing you all a happy and healthy new year.
Purple lanterns float
In the summer garden, sparks
Flying in the breeze.
A new painting ~ snow on the mountains ~ photographed in spring (somewhere near Arthur’s Pass) and painted in summer. The biggest challenge was finding the right colour for the sunlight on top of the hill. I initially painted it quite a cool, light yellow and also dabbed a little on the snow ~ because that was what I saw ~ but it wasn’t what I wanted to say. This is where summer and winter meet and I wanted contrast just as much as I wanted harmony. So I changed it for a warmer, richer yellow. Much better.
“A painting is not a picture of an experience, but is the experience.” Mark Rothko
An aerial perspective of Hokitika Gorge as seen from the swing bridge. The colours of the water in the painting are actually truer to life than those in the photo : )
I ❤️ NZ
Anna Cull ~ Art & Music 