I met River a few weeks ago – had a Tarot card reading with him – and felt strongly compelled to do a painting for him. He and I connected very deeply on many levels. If you would like a reading with him, you can book an appointment with him here:
https://www.facebook.com/riverofheart222
I originally had one thing in my head, but, I felt it wasn’t enough. So, then I remembered a mural I had seen when I was at a yoga studio in Santa Barbara, and decided that I would paint something similar for him.
Unfortunately I didn’t take a ton of photos during the painting process, but, here’s what I have:
First pass. Not bad but a long ways to go!
I wasn’t satisfied with the mountain furthest in the background, so really worked to get it where I wanted it. I also ended up using a ‘new’ painting technique – painting with a brush with my right hand and immediately rubbing any edges with my left index finger – I really wanted to have soft edges! Looking better!
I felt like the tree trunk was too wide so I slimmed it down. I also cleaned up a lot of the edges. The original mural didn’t have a moon in it but I had a feeling that River really connected to the moon so I added one in.
I think I’ve decided to start signing my paintings with the name “Shakti” – it was a name given to me at a yoga center years ago.
From wikipedia:
Shakti (Devanagari: शक्ति, IAST: Śakti; lit. “Energy, ability, strength, effort, power, capability”) is the primordial cosmic energy and represents the dynamic forces that are thought to move through the entire universe in Hinduism, and especially Shaktism, a major tradition of Hinduism.
Anyway, when I was finished I showed the painting to River via Zoom, and then sent him a photo of it. He loved it! He showed the photo to his partner Adam, who also loved it, but also freaked out a bit – River and Adam have been looking at locations to potentially start eco-villages, and this photo was taken at Kenepuru Sound on the south island of New Zealand, one of the locations they’ve been looking at. Look familiar??
In another interesting twist, I just noticed that River had posted a photo of a tree on his FB page on 10/20. I showed him the painting on 10/22. Here’s the photo:
It’s the same type of tree that’s in the painting!
The universe certainly moves in mysterious ways, that’s for sure. Embrace your miracles!