Serenity Found 72×30 oil on canvas is a place of resilience away from all the noise and into the wild of the wilderness. My kayak, named Santee, takes me to those places. In the blazing days of summer and in the cold of a Florida winter, I bring my river boots along, just in case I decide to go for a romp in the river.
The best days in the river are those right before the rising storms threatened to dump a bunch of rain for the plants to soak in. It adds a certain energy to the paddle and the reflections seem to sing.
Some days I am locked right in… fully merged, Breath, body, and spirit… eyes wide open and drinking nature’s beauty. Others I’m locked into the sport and fitness of it. Either way, I know the river is a soothing place of wellness.
I love to study rivers and have quite a few river paintings in my collection. In clear rivers, like the one in this painting, the water is turquoise timelessness. In other rivers, the water is golden with sparkling sand at the bottom. And some rivers the water is a dark brown stained by the tannin of cypress trees.
Serenity Found is a Luscious oil on three 24×30 canvases. The triptych measures 72×30 and makes quite the visual statement.
The underpainting composition was discovered in acrylic paint while I was staying at a resort in Florida a few years back. The more I looked at it, the more it screamed to be in oil.
I painted it outdoors in my garden in the heat and humidity of a Florida summer. The conditions that day replicated what it would be like out on the river in the summertime. The oil paint went onto the canvas like cream and the paints were so vibrant in the sunshine.
I invite the viewer to experience the blissfulness of riding the flow down the river in clear water. Surrender into your vessel and enjoy a peaceful and gentle journey under the bridge that connects you to the edges of awareness.