Rain is a good thang

Rain is a good thang

I had been meaning to post this painting quite some time ago but then got side tracked with other things….and before you know it, it’s months down the road.

Well, I’m happy to say, I have a new reason to post about this painting.  I recently entered it in a local landscape art competition and am happy to say, it received second place honors in the oil/acrylic category.

I’ll be the first to say that I’m not exactly a landscape painter.  I prefer to paint critters…..more specifically, horses.  However, with that said, I do have a deep love for the outdoors and beautiful scenery!  I love to go on outdoor adventures and see beauty in not only the extraordinary but the ordinary day to day scenes.  Sometimes we overlook the landscapes outside our backdoor because they become ordinary to us.  It is good to pause once in a while and take a second look, study the view….you’ve probably missed something.  God has presented us with some beautiful country out there and everyone should slow down once in a while and get out there and see it.

This painting is based on one of those “ordinary” views.  A view that I’d seen several times before and did appreciated as a “pretty” scene, however, I never really stopped and stared for a while and truly appreciate the simple beauty of it.  As an artist, I hadn’t stopped to appreciate the subtle changes in values of green….and the fact that there was green everywhere…..and how water truly saturates color and makes everything look clean, new, and vibrant again.  As a woman who had been raised in the country but had lately been too caught up in the stress of day to day life, I stopped and appreciated the smell of the fresh rain, the smell of corn growing, and felt the damp, cool breeze that you feel immediately after an early rain.

I knew I had to paint this scene as a reminder to stop and appreciate the simple things, a reminder of farm life and values and how blessed I was to grow up in the country.

….in the lyrics of Luke Bryan, “Rain is a good thang”.

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Tags: arts, artwork, corn, farm life, John Deere, oil painting, rain