Welcome to Sophie's Nature Art!

Welcome to the year 2022! 

It's already the middle of January again! The first half of the first month of the year is already over! 

That's why I would like to present two small pictures in today's post - the last picture from 2021 and the first picture from 2022.
I painted the first picture on the last day of 2021 - on New Year's Eve. I finished an hour before midnight. Here is a picture of the spectacular last sunset of 2021:

Last New Year's Eve was very quiet for me. I'm not much of a party person. But as there was no point in going to bed early, I finished the painting. It was for my dear friend who had given me a lovely set of acrylic paints for Christmas (see last post) and helped me to get out of my exhausted situation a little.  

I spent a few days thinking about what kind of picture I could paint for her. She is one of my most loyal fans and has the largest collection of any of my paintings to date. That's why I didn't know what else I could paint for her at first. I wanted to paint something other than just landscapes.
Then I remembered that she likes mice. These are animals that I wouldn't voluntarily keep as pets. But when I was at her house after Christmas, I watched her little mice and had to admit to myself that they can be really cute. Watching them somehow also had a relaxing factor. 

So I looked for a cute picture with a mouse. My younger brother's very extensive picture collection helped me with this.
Until this picture, I had never painted a realistic picture of a mouse and thought that it wouldn't be that easy to paint the fur. The fur also took most of my time. But I had time. So on New Year's Eve I listened to Christmas carols and painted a mouse.  

Fortunately, I had hit the mark with the picture. Now it hangs at a safe distance above the mouse cage.  

I painted another picture in the first week of January. I really wanted to paint something maritime again. Somehow I was in the mood for a lighthouse. I spent hours scouring Pinterest, google and other search engines. Eventually I found a really appealing motif. 

I had some problems with the lighthouse when I was painting it. It was too thick at the beginning. That's why I had to paint over it again completely. In the end, I was able to paint it more or less satisfactorily.
I find it very difficult to paint stones. That's why I avoid motifs with stones. But with this picture, I couldn't avoid the rocks. So I had to struggle through it. I realized that I was quite out of practice. But the sailing ship was all the easier. Maybe it's because I simply like sailing ships more than cold rocks 🙂 
Both pictures are painted on 24x18cm canvases.

The picture here is a night scene. A sailing ship enters the harbor after a long journey. It is up to the viewer's imagination to imagine what adventures this ship and her crew have experienced on their journey.  

This scene reminds me of my time last summer on the sail training ship Roald Amundsen. I volunteered for the first watch, which was from 0-4 at night and from 12-16 at night. The night watches were a unique experience for me. I particularly enjoyed taking on the job of lookout. It was exciting to see what was happening on the water at night. Our first mate always explained the lights I saw to me. He showed me on the map how far away some things were. Flashing lights were lighthouses or wind farms. From a distance, the lights of the lighthouses flash, but actually their cone of light just rotates.  

When it was my turn to look out again, I saw a green light on our port side (for all landlubbers: that's on the left). It still looked very far away to me. I reported it to the first helmsman and he asked me if I could also see a red light. At first I couldn't see it, but then we saw it together. Every ship has to sail in the dark with a green light on the port side and a red light on the starboard side (=right).

So if I see a green light on the port side, it means that the other ship is coming towards us. In this case, we were actually on a collision course. The other ship couldn't avoid us, so we had to take evasive action. The ship was closer than we thought and so we actually had to move quite quickly.  

This made me realize how important the lights are in the dark. Even in the age of radio and GPS, sailors don't just rely on technology, but also observe the lights on the water.  

In the Bible (in Psalm 119:105), the Word of God, i.e. the Bible itself, is described as a “light”. 

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. 

As I have seen in the last post the end of the year was quite dark and gloomy for me. I couldn't see my future. At times I was very discouraged because many of my dreams were shattered. 

But I made the promises of God my light. I trusted his love and care for me and handed my problems and worries over to him. This allowed me to feel peace and confidence again. Slowly the fog is lifting and I can at least see the next steps I can take. I don't know the end of this journey. I also don't know where I will be at the end of this year, but I do know that I have a reliable guide who, like the lighthouse, leads the way to safe harbor and keeps me from being smashed against the rocks of problems and discouragement.  

I'm looking forward to the adventures I get to experience this year. And yes, I'm looking forward to the challenges, because I can grow with them! 

So with this in mind: cast off and off we go into 2022!