Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Thanksgiving


"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than success, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company ... a church ... a home, or an individual. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for the day. We cannot change our past ... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is ten percent what happens to me and ninety percent how I react to it. And so it is with you. We are in charge of our attitudes."
- Charles Swindoll

Right now I have an attitude of gratitude.  Tonight my dear daughter asked me if I am happy.  I am sure that my answer didn't do the question justice, but, I told her that I was happy and that I felt truly blessed.  I can't imagine a more perfect life for me.  I have my children, we have our health, I have an awesome and fulfilling career, a great employer, and, while my family is a bit far away, technology allows me to keep in touch with them on a regular basis.  I have a home, the ability to provide the for our basic needs, and will even be able to share our home and blessings with some good friends later today.  Yes, I am happy and truly do feel blessed.  Thank You God!


Sunday, November 1, 2009

Painting

I've really been enjoying creating paintings from existing photos.  Here's one I did from a photo that I took of my nephew at the county fair this summer.

The photo really left a little bit to be desired, there were shadows, his eyes were too dark to see the beautiful blue, the color was off, and it was in much need of a good crop.  I decided on a vertical crop and created the painting as an 8 x 10:


Here's a crop to show you the detail in the painting:

So you can get an idea of the work that was involved, I've included a small version of the original photo so that you can see that it really was just a routine snapshot and likely not something that I would have selected to print very large if at all.