surprise friends
A few years ago, someone send me a postcard that I loved so much (I cannot find it and don’t remember who the artist was, I am sorry to say). I tried to paint it…my version (above) I have entitled “surprise friends”…it was my fist attempt at painting with gouache, a type of watercolor paint, which is much more difficult to control than oil or acrylic. It was hard for me to let it flow. The original had a pig but no other animals. I tried to paint a cat but a rabbit just kept coming out. I would paint over the rabbit, trying to “fashion” a cat, and the rabbit would almost re-appear. Finally I just left it, realizing that it had more of an idea about who it was than I did.
I cannot take credit for the wonderful simplicity of this painting ….that was the idea of the original artist. But where did that little rabbit come from?! I keep this painting on my desk. It reminds me that I am never alone…that something wonderful is flowing through, and connecting me, and every one of us. And although I may at times think that I know what it is, or what it should look like, very often, it offers a wonderful surprise!
