Imagine a portal

Imagine a portal to another world. What would you see there? Art is my door to the imagination of mysterious cliffs, ancient groves, and sacred waters. This is the land of legends and fairy tales where humans can shapeshift into soaring eagles, run with wolves, and flow with dolphins. Animals talk here and have plenty of ideas of their own.

We’ve all been there in our dreams and daydreams. Portals are the passing through to new possibilities, moving forward, or entering fresh new worlds.

‘Through the Portal’ started out as an older painting of sacred deer. I often nurture my creative practice by using something from the past. It can be a painting done in a different style, or something from an online class, and I let it inspire my present.

I knew I wanted a lot of healing turquoise tones and something from nature growing around me. Our cool spring of rain and 50 degrees is greening a lot, but few flowers are to be found. The pink rhododendrons I found in the front garden were a good start.

Begin each creative act with the things you ‘know’. Doing the art opens the portal to new ideas, as one thing leads to the next. This only happens when you trust enough to begin.

The turquoise lavender sky filled over the goldens of the deer, and it felt right. As sky flowed down into water, I laid a large brass hoop over the canvas, a remnant of crafty days of wreathmaking.

There it was. A portal to some magic place. I added some marks with a watercrayon, just letting my hand flow. From those, high cliffs and a sacred grove of arched trees appeared. Trees so majestically connect the sky to the earth.

The sky ‘outside’ just had to be the night sky in our world, filled with the full moon. But over there, magic shines a crescent moon over a flowing river.

Imagine a portal opening to magic.

I felt birds were calling. First I thought of raven. But this needed some lightness of being. Sea gulls, then cranes came to me. Then I remembered Michael Parkes, a wonderful American artist, living in Spain. His magical soaring birds were wondrous swans. So full of mystery and myth, swans have been flying through my dreams ever since.

The magic 3 usually enters my art. So there we have it. Three graceful swans, entering and within the portal, flying to their wonderland story of love, fulfillment, and beauty.

How do you nurture your passion? Are you still searching for the creative thing that excites and empowers you? Never stop learning, growing, and discovering new experiences. The world becomes a magical place of beauty, memories, and a life well lived when you allow an adventure Through the Portal.

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