Outlook Over Oklahoma

“Your life becomes the thing you have decided it shall be.”
– Raymond Charles Barker

Outlook Over Oklahoma

Four – 2.5″ x 3.5″ ATCs

Golden Fluid Acrylic on Watercolor Paper

This was another fun Port Townsend, Washington motel room painting. I wanted to do something larger than an ATC, yet all I had with me were these small 2.5″ x 3.5″ pieces of watercolor paper. I don’t travel with scotch tape, so I scrounged around my motel room until I came up with the sticky part of the airline luggage tag. I cut little pieces of it with my tiny travel sewing kit scissors and taped the ATCs together on the back, so I could paint this in my motel room. I almost didn’t take it apart, except that I could envision it matted something like this.

About Raymond Charles Barker

Raymond Charles Barker was an influential American minister and author in the mid-twentieth century. He wrote such books as The Power of Decision and Treat Yourself to Life, on ways to change subconscious patterns. He became president of the International New Thought Alliance in 1943, a group practicing the religious philosophy developed in the late 1800’s by Phineas Quimby, with early proponents including Ralph Waldo Emerson. Unity Church and Divine Science are among its later offshoots. He founded the First Church of Religious Science in Manhattan in 1946 and served as its minister until 1979. He died in 1988 at the age of 77.

Kansas Crop Circles - December 16, 2009

“Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.”
– Lin Yutang

Kansas Crop Circles

2.5″ x 3.5″

When I left the airport in Oklahoma City, on my way to Seattle last month, I was intrigued by the view. Since I have committed to flying lessons, I saw things differently than I have in the past. I sketched this scene on to a little ATC. (I always have watercolor supplies with me when I fly.) When I was in my hotel room in Port Townsend, I started painting it with Golden Fluid Acrylics. I finished it last weekend, after many more layers of glaze. I did another one, which I will share with you tomorrow. It was fun!

About Lin Yutang

Chinese author Lin Yutang wrote more than 35 books in English and Chinese, including My Country and My People and The Importance of Living, which brought him international fame. He was born in 1895 in the Fujian province in China. He created a Chinese-American dictionary, an indexing system for Chinese letters, and translated many classic Chinese texts. Written in a humorous, accessible style, his books bridged European and Chinese cultures. He died in 1976.