Haiti project

Dear Readers,
Thank you for logging in today. I hope you are happy and well.
Yesterday, I was able to paint all day on my Haiti painted prayer project. I changed the sky and ocean in the second painting. It takes at least two and sometimes three coats of paint to get the perfect blend that I love in the sky. I must have varied skies in my paintings or I'm not happy.
I discovered the beauty of blended skies one day when I was in an apple orchard painting on site. When I looked up the sky was bright blue and when I looked at the horizon it was light blue. I think it is because we are looking through so many more particles in the atmospere when we are looking at the horizon.
Now I am blending skies with a spiritual intention in mind rather than trying to create a sense of natural realism. I use the technique to create auras around people, trees or animals. I feel the spirit of trees and animals like I feel human spirits. This is because of a holy experience I had.
When I was 19, I received my call into the ministry for the first time, as I was out on a dock listening to a friend play guitar and sing a song of praise to Christ. I heard the lake, the hills, the trees and all of nature join in singing that song with my friend and all of heaven! It lasted for maybe one or two minutes, but those moments have defined the rest of my life and I try to put the ecstacy of that event into everything I paint.
These images I am painting of Haiti are in direct contrast to the photos we see on the news. I am painting the reality for which I am praying and hoping for the children, women and men of Haiti. These images are inspired by some of the beauty and hope that I witnessed when I visited in 1985, 1989 and 1990. I saw plenty of horror and dispair, but there was also love, kindness, and even bits and pieces of joy here and there.
I saw kindness when we gave a school girl a sandwhich and she broke it into pieces to share with her school mates. I saw joy in the faces of the kids at Grace Children's Hospital who were getting well after being well fed and receiving the medicine they needed for TB. They climbed all over us and coudn't get enough of our hugs and smiles. I saw hope and beauty on top of the mountain in the worship at the church with open windows looking out over the sea. There were brightly colored rectangles of tissue paper attached to strings that were strung over our heads in the sanctuary that fluttered in the breeze as we praised God. Toddlers sat silently next to their moms for the two hour service without squirming! The pastor was honored with a donkey to ride up the mountain before church. He was an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church and had a 72 point charge! There were lay pastors at the 72 churches and whenever Rev. Moise Isadore came, they had communion and baptisms.
I started a third painting of that church on the mountain surrounded by a small circle of Haitian worshippers. In the border surrounding the central composition, is the rubble of the earthquake.
I am putting the rubble in all of the borders and hope, worship and joy in the spiritual "window" at the center of the canvas.
The images for the first two paintings are inspired by some darling girls we saw in the outskirts of the village of Petit Guave. They saw us from a distance and started dancing and yelling, "Blanc! Blanc! Give me one dollar!" They were under a canopy of trees and were as appealing as could be!!!