My Fascination Abounds with Jungle Paintings and Jungle Settings

"Jungle Thicket" MMSikes

On our first visit to Jamaica a few years ago, I discovered a fascination with jungle flowers and foliage that follows me to this day. When I returned home, I couldn't stop creating pastel working drawings and large acrylic paintings until I had a large series of these works of art. I named that series "Tropical Fantasies" because of the love I had developed for the tropics.

Now I am bringing that jungle obsession into my writing. From my first novel, set in Jamaica, I have wanted to place my characters into warm, tropical climates.

Much of the setting for my WIP (work in progress) takes place in the jungles of Central America, including Costa Rica. I have taken the characters from an earlier novel, Secrets by the Sea, and cast them in this book. While it is a story that will stand alone, it will be helpful to the reader to have read the earlier book first.

I find it inspiring to have photographs of jungles around me as I go deeper into writing this story. And we sleep beneath a 4 x 6 foot acrylic painting of Dunn's River Falls in Jamaica from my "Tropical Fantasies" series. This painting was the second large art work I created of this dramatic jungle waterfalls setting. The first was purchased by a large hotel chain to place in a new facility when it opened. I missed that painting so much I had to paint another of the waterfalls scene to hang in my own home.

Do you, as a writer or an artist, find a subject that attracts you over and over again? My fascination with jungles abounds. I wonder how much farther it will go...