Creatively Creating Crescent Lake

I really enjoy pursuing my creative interests.  The other night Myles took the initiative to paint a small canvas of mine.  The next morning was greeted with rays of sun blasting through the windows.  I had that surge of creative energy and responded to it.  I got out a canvas, paints, and a brush.  I know my materials aren't high quality, but that's okay because with my experience I don't really know any different.  The concept for the painting is Crescent Lake, Oregon a place that is much more than a beautiful geographic location that I visit for at least one week in the summer and long for the rest of the year.  It's a place of numerous experiences.  Above all it represents meaningful relationships with family and friends.  However, I don't draw people, let alone paint them.  So I focused on the lake itself.  I felt like I was producing a decent image with my one and only sorry excuse for an artist's paintbrush, and I was having fun.  But I didn't like how I was trying to make it look like there was the lake with sand and rocks in the foreground and tree covered mountains in the back.  I made a mental shift and aligned it with my preference (quite possibly due to my lack of skill and experience) of simple shapes, lines, and colors and started painting a woven pattern in one corner by changing the direction of the paint.  I continued to paint over what I had already done (it's just paint, no big deal) by using the paintbrush to create a woven, tiled, or quilted texture.  Kim was encouraging with the new direction, which was nice.  In the end I like the idea of what I created, but not necessarily the specific solution or outcome of the idea.  The painting is titled Crescent Lake Quilt.  Each square represents an experience and relationship at the lake.  There are many more actual experiences as I have been going nearly every year of my life.  The water isn't painted like the trees and sand because there are many more experiences and relationships yet to take shape.  I now have lofty visions of presenting actual quilts sewn based on this idea to every member of the family ... maybe when I'm older and my grandkids are eating the mouth-watering Dutch oven dinners and salmon bake, digging in the pumice beach, and swimming in the clear, frigid, refreshing, youth inducing water.  Anyone up for camping?