With all the warmer weather we have been having, I am looking forward to getting outdoors more to enjoy it and capture it in paintings. There is a lot of beauty in the Edmonton area - so I don't have to even venture very far to find it.   I love watching all the leaves come in and the blossoming trees. Millcreek Ravine is so beautiful in each season and we get to walk in it every day with our dogs.

Elk Island National Park is also not far away from Edmonton. It is another beautiful place to hike and see wildlife. I am fascinated with the Bison - Can you imagine there used to be heards of thousands roaming the plains? 

These three watercolours and print of a watercolour are going to be showing at the Eye C Gallery, along with 11 other paintings and limited edition prints, where I will be the featured artist for the month of June.

I will spend the afternoon there on June 4 in front of the gallery painting at my easel in the mall. 12-4pm. Come by and see me!

June 1-30, 2011

Featured Artist

Eye C Gallery

Bonnie Doon Mall

#181, 82nd Ave & 83rd St,

Edmonton Alberta

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

This is one of my favorite paintings. As it is called "Resurrection III" you may note that it is my third one of the same name. Each one was a bit different. All being enjoyed now by others. Some day maybe I'll paint it again in another way, but it wasn't this year.

The butterfly has often been used as a symbol of resurrection. For as the caterpillar goes into a cocoon, so Christ went into the tomb. Like winter, where the world looks lifeless, brown and dead, a cocoon looks dead, tomb like. Yet inside the cocoon a miracle of nature is taking place as the caterpillar becomes a butterfly. It emerges slowly, the process taking several hours and the butterfly has to wait longer for it's wings to unwrinke and stiffen enough to fly.

The lily as a bulb, also has been a symnbol of resurrection. Again it is something that looks dead, but in spring it comes alive again. All of spring is like that for me, I eagerly watch the buds grow and swell on the trees until they finally burst out and are spring green everywhere.

The butterflies are all from different parts of the world. The butterfly collection at the Royal Alberta Museum was a great resource for this -  several cases of them and so many beautiful butterflies. "Go into all the worls and proclaim the good news."(Mark 16:15) He is risen!

Empty Nest, Winter of my Soul
Changes. 
New things come, old things pass. 
It is hard to let go.
It is hard to say good-bye to what was,
Treasured moments; the good, the bad
Yet
letting  go is part of living.
It is part of loving.
There will be new beginnings;
New memories;
New changes.
Such is the circle or spiral we live in.
We cannot hold on to the present.
It must fly
Away.
And the empty nest
is the memory we have left.

Our son, Thaddeus is coming home in a couple of weeks, having been away at Capernwray Bible School in England since September. He is only staying a couple of weeks before taking off again. Our second son, Nathaniel, is graduating from high school and looking into a Mount Carmel Bible School for next fall. Our daughter, Talia, is graduating from grade 9 and will be starting high school in the fall. Reena, our youngest, not wanting to feel left out, decided a change of bedrooms was for her, thus initiating a changing of rooms in our home that involved nearly every room. With this much change, I feel this painting and poem fit this month.

What changes are you feeling these days?

Fall schedule for classes and workshops and shows will be up on my website in a few weeks. You can see the newest paintings on my website. www.shedrewit.com/portfolio.php

Have a good June!