"M" is for Mystical - A to Z Challenge

"Mystical Forest" ©Mary Montague Sikes

Farrah Ferand's passion for trees and forests continues as she paints a mystical forest today. Farrah, the heroine of Evening of the Dragonfly studies the woods near her home and the trees that grow there, wondering what they have seen all around them during many decades of life. The non-evergreen trees in Virginia are losing their leaves in the autumn. Those leaves are completely gone by the time of her one-person art show. Sometimes the trees are shrouded in mist, giving them a mysterious appearance. Farrah remembers the mysteries of the forest as she works on her new painting.

"Mystical Forest" is actually half of a painting. This acrylic and watercolor art work is on an 18" x 36" canvas. The other half of the canvas will be the Neverland painting for tomorrow. How she will bring the two parts of this painting together, Farrah has not yet decided. We will learn more tomorrow.


For those of you who have just joined this blog journey:
Evening of the Dragonfly is a novel set in the 1980s, a time less complicated than today. Farrah Ferand has a high school art teaching job in a small Virginia town. She meets Dirk Lawrence, a businessman from the city, who takes an interest in her and in her painting and is helping her build a studio over the garage in her rented home. Farrah is thrilled to have the studio because she has a one-person art exhibition scheduled. As she works on new paintings, Farrah realizes things about herself, her relationships, and the tragic loss of her mother. We encounter some of her realizations as new paintings and parts of painting are unveiled each day during the A to Z Challenge. My book is available in trade paperback and as an e-book.

"D" is for Dragonfly - A to Z Blog Challenge

In Evening of the Dragonfly, the lovely little dragonfly creature is bittersweet for our heroine, Farrah Ferand. She has memories that connect the graceful dragonfly to her most tragic moments.

Because of her dragonfly encounters, Farrah has researched its symbolic meanings and is captivated by them. One of them tells her about "going past self-created illusions that limit growth and change." She needs that positive direction as she creates new paintings, one by one, for the one-person exhibition in the city.

There's color magic in the dragonfly and an opening to creative imagination, she learns. Surely, she needs both of those.

"Dragonflies and Portals to Other Planets" ©Mary Montague Sikes

Then, there's the mystical part--the dragonfly flitting through portals to other worlds. That information hits Farrah hard and leads her to create the 18" x 24" watercolor painting "Dragonflies and Portals to Other Planets".

Her tree painting hangs unfinished in the studio. She will work on it over the weekend and post a photo of the finished 18" x 36" canvas on the Monday blog.