Yellow Butterfly Painting

Months after starting this painting and then letting it sit before I got back to it, I finally finished it on June 7, 2011. For some reason, this date seems significant but I could not tell you why I feel that way. While I love this painting, especially the colors, there were some bittersweet moments in the completing this painting. Those moments will remain hidden within me.

Yellow is one of my favorite colors and against the blue, it really just brings this entire image alive to me, not from what I see, but from what I feel. It is simple but yet provocative. It is profound but yet it is simple. If I added anything else to it, the painting would cease to be an image. Instead, it would be a cluttering of colors.

A yellow butterfly is synonymous with angels to me. When I see a yellow butterfly, I always think of angels. Actually when I think of angels, it is more often than not that I see a yellow butterfly. I consider the yellow butterfly something that is of a spiritual nature to me and takes me from my current moment into what is beyond my realm of awareness and hopefulness.

In this particular painting, I tried to give it texture to make it appear active rather than just an image. The lines that aren't perfect, the texture of the brush strokes, the layering of the palm branch over the butterfly plus much more add to the mysterious texture woven into the painting. I won't give it all away because I want someone to look at the painting and see much more than is on the surface.

When I hit times in life where things are difficult or unknown, this painting just gives me a moment of pause and connection. It helps me to know that things are okay and one can always take off from the ground (or the current awareness) into all that the sky offers. Of course, the sky never ends and neither does our awareness or hopefulness. What we see today is not what we will know tomorrow. Our life is much more than that.




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Blog Post & Images (c) 6/7/11 Don Shetterly - use by permission only
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Fragments Of Awarness

This is my second painting called "Fragments Of Awareness". Please click on the picture to enlarge it to full size. (c) 10/04/2009 by Don Shetterly (all rights reserved).

When I started to paint this, I had a different image in my mind, but of course staying with the moment, I allowed the painting to go where it needed to go. It turned into something much different than I expected, but it still has the intricate layers interwoven within the brush strokes on the cavass.

The background color actually turned out to be a different shade of red than I initially had chosen, but I love it and I almost didn’t want to add anything to it. However, the background is full of dimensions itself and many layers. There is so much depth and texture that it could very likely write its own story.

Of course the central part of this painting is the face in the center. It is the generic face of a person with one eye that is partially open to one dimension, and the other eye that is partially opened to another dimension. They are not balanced and that was done on purpose because we never see things fully as they are. All things that come into our view are filtered by our experiences, what we have been taught, and what we have learned as well as where we are currently at in our lives. The face was meant to resemble a person’s face, but yet stay mysterious as to all that was going on. Each person, who sees this painting will come away with a different view, and I’m not going to impose my view upon anyone. I want everyone to see what they see in it, not what I see in it.

This painting was done over a period of several days, and images were added at different times by color, as to how I felt at that given moment. There are some images that resemble birds and animals, while others are just marks and shapes without much thought as to what they were supposed to be. There are angels in the painting as there are in everything that I paint. You may need to look closely to find them. Again, I’m sure each person looking at this will see different things in each of the shapes, based upon their life and what those shapes or objects represent to them. I did try to strike a balance between color and placement, but leaving the pattern of the shapes and objects on the canvass to be random and in a placed format. I wanted them to have a life all to their own, but to be separate while being part of the entire painting.

Fragments of Awareness is the name I got as the painting came to completion. In our lives, what we know and see today or are aware of, will most likely be different tomorrow. We may not even see the objects fully until they are very close to us and even if we think we see them, what we see compared to what we truly see, may be two different concepts. Often our awareness brings with it familiar objects as thoughts, words, and music, among other things. It also brings with it little pieces that begin at first by being mysterious, and then growing to full recognition within ourselves. We are more than what we see, and what we see is a part of us, as we are a part of it. The possibilities are endless and the experiences many, but with each new moment of each new day, what we are aware of is much more than the day before. This is what makes us human; to become more aware of ourselves, what is around us, and how we impact all that we touch through our lives. Of course, this is my view behind the painting, but each person who views it will see it through their own awareness, and it will take on a life of its own which is ever changing.

The Many Dimensions Of Life

© 9/21/09 Don Shetterly - #1 (click thumbnail to enlarge picture)

This is the first painting I’ve ever painted outside of elementary or junior high school. I don’t really see myself as a painter but I do enjoy putting colors together and trying to find the different depths of dimensions that the eye may or may not pick up.

Maybe in some ways, this is how I see my current life at the moment. I guess if it is like my music, my creativity usually depicts my current mood, moments and life
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In life, there are many dimensions and so is the same true in this picture. Even if you look at any one part of it, within those parts, you will see different dimensions through the use of colors, textures and the layering of the colors and textures. The dimensions of this painting are many and vary from the obvious to the almost hidden from view.

As life goes, there are always mountains. Sometimes we are climbing the mountains and other times we are looking at the mountains from afar. Within the mountains, there are many beautiful trees and snow covered peaks, but underneath, there is the grey rocky soil.

Nestled within the mountains is a lake of refreshment and peace and calmness. It is full of depth in itself and offers an oasis within the mountains we climb. While it may look out of place to the overall aspect of the mountains, this is usually true of how we find those peaceful moments within the challenges. They are not always straight forward and obvious but sometimes often hidden from view and from a different viewpoint than we may normally look.

Running through the lush hillside of earth and grass, is a winding river with many crooks and turns. Even sometimes before we get to the mountains, we follow a path which may not be straight and known. Often it is filled with the unknowns and the surprise bends and turns. But it leads us further into the mountains and the challenges and it also points the way to the lake we will need in the future.

Our house or our life is filled with colors and in this painting, it reminds us that each day we get to choose the colors we want to create the story book of our lives. There is no right or wrong in what we choose but there are many colors to choose from. Our life and our house may have many windows in it which some are open and others are obscured from view.

Following upwards to the sky, you may notice all kinds of things from the different colors and textures to the hint of clouds. Never when you look at the sky do you see one solid color. There are always varying colors and often clouds to some degree in some part of the horizon. Our life is much the same way in that even the way we see it, there is so much more. It isn’t just a one color “blue sky” type of life. It is much more than that.

Last but not least is the angel that stays close to me. I never fully feel alone even when I get moody and I’m struggling because I know the angels are around me. There is way too much evidence to refute any suspicions and denials. While my depiction may not be like others would see them, this is how they reference in my mind and my life would not be complete without an angel around me.