Love Lives Here

when words evade me

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice-
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations, though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen branches and stones.
but little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do-
determined to save
the only life you could save.
                                                   The Journey by Mary Oliver

self portrait practice

a painting exercise for class

I have decided to finally, I think, call this good enough and move on to more painting. I believe the paper was giving me the main problems making colour blending extremely difficult. Part of what this class was about ~ being loose. I was not. I was becoming extremely tense with each time I tried to work on it. I finally have this at a place where I feel I can share, but please do not linger with studying it. There are far too many things wrong.

"Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes."

                                                                       Oscar Wilde 
 
I will choose to move onto something else and to work with more wonderful advice from our teacher                                                     
                                                  practice, practice, practice.