Day 13. Brighter Tomorrows

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“Biding Time” 6×6, oil on canvas, $135.00

I painted a kingfisher (with a brush if you can imagine!) during my very first daily painting challenge nearly seven years ago. Back then it was just a mere 30 in 30 (because I did it in April). My friend had asked me to paint one. She was hoping to have a child, struggling to do so, and saw this particular bird as a symbol of hope for the future. That future turned out to be not at all like she planned or envisioned. I know firsthand that sometimes our hopes and dreams have to be completely upended before they can bloom. And when they do? I know for me, I wondered how my vision could have ever been so small to begin with. That friend now lives in a different country with a different partner. But I see her face every once in a while on my feed– she’s smiling. And she has the most precious daughter you could imagine. 

Nearly seven years later, and I’m still going back to these old subjects, seeing if I can breathe some new life into them. I revisit them especially when I don’t know what to paint and rather than waste a morning deciding, I paint something familiar while I think about what comes next. I’ll admit, instead of coming up with where I wanted to go next, I flipped this same bird around and went at it again on a second canvas, which I’ll finish and post for tomorrow’s painting. I’ve learned a lot from today’s painting. Tomorrow’s is even brighter. 

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