Down to it and rolling thunder

After the play

Watercolour and marker

on watercolour paper

9 x 12 inches

Barbara Muir © 2013

There is so much work in April that is not about painting
that an artist's soul can get rebellious.  I always paint.  That
is the beginning and end for me.  But of course what I want
to paint may be cooking inside the three -- four pounds
of matter inside my skull.  Lately I have been dreaming of
going really big again.  No doubt Lucian Freud who I've been
reading about has been the inspiration in part for that dream.
But I have been such a sick puppy this past week,
that that dream has to remain a sleeping giant until I finally feel
normal (okay my normal) again.  Meanwhile I am always
happy to give you something a little smaller.

I started this as heavy thunder rolled over our house.
Thunder crackled on my portable as I talked to a friend
in the states worried about the news from Boston,
because her son was in Spain when the marathon
was on, but he's back home now and lives in Boston. She is
halfway across the U.S. and talks to him on Skype.

Then this morning I learned that Boston was in lock down.
This painting captured the look on my son's face when it
was time for us to take him back to his house at university
in Windsor, and leave him behind to drive to Toronto.  It's
poignant to me because I never left him without crying.  I'd
recover quickly listening to one of our favorite funny
shows on the radio as we drove away.  But leaving your
children is a wrench.  And this week it's hard not to
think of parents and children in so many ways.

Have a loving-the-people-in-your-family day.