Shark !!!

Sharks have been around for 400 million years. This is about 200 million years before dinosaurs made the scene.

Long before Peter Benchley's "Jaws" book and Steven Spielbergs film adaptation, people have had a fear of sharks. I can see why the fear is there............stories have been cultivated for hundreds of years about "man-eating" sharks. Yes, sharks can be dangerous and yes, they do kill, but they are NOT the man-eating killing machines that they have been made out to be. The oceans are theirs and any killing they do is for their own survival. Any attacks that are on humans are merely by mistaken identity or that they were feeling threatened.

When I dive with sharks, I see nothing but a beautiful, graceful animal. I am working on a series of small paintings dedicated to the sharks I have dove with. I hope that through these paintings, you can overlook your fears and see the beauty that I see through my diving mask.

Gray Reef Shark, 12"x12" Oil painting, $140.00. To purchase, email me at dvrbon@wi.rr.com

http://www.bonnielynnsart.com

Palette knife Queen Angelfish

While working on a new 12"x12" painting on Thursday of a Queen Angelfish, I had one of my larger bristle brushes between my teeth sideways. The brush was loaded with beautiful bright cadmium yellow oil paint. As Murphy's law would have it, I dropped the brush right smack dab onto my nearly finished painting. Instead of brushing out the blob of paint and risking smearing it around, I took a small palette knife and tried to lift it off. In the process, it made a very cool mark on the fish. Even though it would mean changing the order of how I had originally painted it, I decided to keep going with it and see what would happen. I ended up re-working the whole painting and am actually ok with the results.

I wish I had had time to take a photo of the first version before the brush fell on it so that you could see the comparison.

Queen Angelfish, 12"x12" oil painting, $140.00, http://www.bonnielynnsart.com/OceanColorsNewestPaintings.html To purchase, email me at dvrbon@wi.rr.com

Challenger, American Eagle

I had the subject of my blog and my underwater art all set, and then someone sent me this wonderful video about a bald eagle named Challenger (in honor of the lost space crew and shuttle). I wanted to share this video with you.

Challenger was blown out of a nest in Louisiana in the late 1980's and was hand raised. He has been declared "non-releasable" by federal wildlife authories, because he is "human imprinted". The American Eagle Foundation has trained him to perform educational free-flight demonstrations at high profile events.

Challenger has learned to free-fly into stadiums, arenas and ballrooms at the playing of the Star Spangled Banner.
He has met 4 US presidents and his life story is told in a children's storybook titled, "Challenger, America's Favorite Eagle."

When I watched the video of Challenger flying and listened to the song, I welled up with so much pride for our United States that I cried through the whole thing.

I will let you play it for yourself. Challenger

The Mermaid Chair

No, this isn't the romantically passionate story written by Susan Monk Kidd. This is about a chair that I painted for the Deerpath Art League silent auction benefit of painted, embellished or altered chairs. The Deerpath Art League is a not for profit organization committed to raising appreciation and awareness of the arts in the community. This year's benefit will help raise money for the Young Artist Enrichment Program which brings awareness, education and art mentoring to elementary through high schools students.

This chair is intended for a little girl who has a love for the ocean and the fantasy of mermaids.

A mermaid is a mythological sea creature that is half woman/ half aquatic creature (fish, dolphin, ie.). The word is a compound of mere, the word for sea and maid, which has retained is original sense. (Wikipedia).

Greek mythology says that mermaids had sweet voices and their songs were heard by mariners who were lured into grounding their boats on the rocks and drowned. Mermaids were frequently seen sitting on rocks with a mirror and combing their long hair. Mermaids could foretell the future, give supernatural powers to human beings, or fall in love with humans and then entice their mortal lovers to follow them beneath the sea.

But then there is the story of The Little Mermaid, written by Hans Christian Andersen in the 1800's, and made into a Disney movie. The little mermaid, Aerial, lived in a crystal palace with her father, the King, beneath the sea. She has a fascination with her grandmother's stories about the world above the sea. On her fifteenth birthday she is given permission to rise above the surface of the sea for a peek at a world unknown to her. While exploring, she sees a ship on which a young handsome prince is celebrating his birthday. Without warning, the ship has an accident and on sinking, Aerial saves the young prince from drowning. Aerial falls in love with the prince and must make a choice to stay in the sea or give up her immortality and live on land with her beloved prince.

Sea turtles

The Seris are an ethnic indigeous group of the Mexican state of Sonora. They were historically semi-nomadic hunters/gatherers who maintained an intimate relationship with the sea and land. Today they live in two villages on the edge of the Gulf of California. The songs of the Seri tell the stories of creation. This is part of the story of their sacred "relative", the sea turtle.

After the Great Flood, which covered the entire earth, the majestic sea turtle swam down in the ocean. With powerful strokes of her graceful flippers, the sea turtle swam deeper and deeper until she reached the bottom of the ocean.

There, she collected earth and swam back up to the surface where she formed new land.

That land is where we live today.

That is why the sea turtle is our sacred relative

To purchase any of the turtle paintings, email me at dvrbon@wi.rr.com

http://www.bonnielynnsart.com/OceanColorsCritters.html

Making it through the Christmas season

As much as I love Christmas and all that goes along with it, there is always that fleeting moment when I just wish it was all over with.

I used to be a visual merchandiser for large department stores, and every September, we would start putting up the Christmas trees, wreaths and garland all over the store despite the customers who would make it known very loudly that it was "just too early to be thinking about Christmas....its not even Halloween for pity sake !"
Then I took a job as a floral designer and again in September, along with making autumnal floral pieces, we would start our Christmas seasonal designs. So you can see that for years my holiday seasons would seemingly go on forever and ever !

Even though I felt I had Christmas up the ying-yang, I would always make sure at home that the tree was up and that my two sons participated in decorating the house and baking the cookies, and now I am thankful that I forced myself to do these things, because these traditions have now been passed on to my grandchildren. To see the look in their eyes when the tree is decorated and lit means the world to me.

I know that the season between Thanksgiving and Christmas can get very daunting at times. The shopping, the baking, the wrapping of presents, etc etc. Just take a deep breathe and know that somehow you will get it all done. Keep it all in perspective and don't bog yourself down with trivial tasks.

We must keep in mind what the real meaning of Christmas is: it is the celebration of the birth of our Lord; the love and coming together of family and friends.. Just for one magical day of the year, all seems right with the world. Remember the reason for the season.

White Christmas

Ok, who wished for a white Christmas this year?? Well, thanks to whomever that was, we got blasted last night with 14" of the fluffy white stuff.
Revved up the snowblower and dusted off the shovel and my husband and I had it all cleared off in about 2 hours time. I hear we are expecting a few more inches on Saturday and perhaps Sunday.

This should give Santa a good base to land on our roof.