Our Friendship Is Quite Unique

Our Friendship Is Quite Unique

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Our Friendship Is Quite Unique
oil on canvas paper
11 x 17 inches
This item is unmounted and unframed
(click on the image to purchase


We take it in turns to play 'attack', 
While the other rolls onto their back.
To him I've the strength of a flea, 
But I'm sure he'd never hurt me.
No harm comes from tooth or beak, 
Our friendship is quite unique.
We're a shining example of how kin, 
May each wear a very different skin. - from Two Unlikely Friends by STEPHEN KATONA

More travellers in the SS Malarkey sailing across the Sea of Shenanigans as I spend this month exploring the theme of the beautiful pea-green boat.

As the poem says, we may each wear a very different skin​ and yet we are still in the same boat, on the same sea, in the same world.  There was a heart-melting story of this very thing on the Oregon coast last week.

A juvenile humpback whale was beached in a tangle of crab pot line. Humans gathered in droves in the dark, the cold, the waves and the sand and pushed, pulled, comforted, and encouraged the whale. All night, all the next day, and more nights and days following. They did not hesitate to risk their own comfort and safety to help this beings who was so different from themselves. 

Veterinarians administered vitamins, hydration and valium to support the whale. Experts and volunteers worked together in a herculean effort to save it, with the whale blowing and making sounds throughout.  With each report and video, I cried. I admit to being teary as I write these words.

The people's heroic efforts ultimately failed to save the giant, and local tribes appeared on site afterward to reverently handle the remains. I like to think those final days for the whale were as good as they could have been, in the hands of loving, determined and compassionate humans. And for me personally, this story of helping someone who wears a very different skin  touched me to the core. 

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About the art: beginning with a piece of canvas paper gesso'd in white, I sketched the figure outline roughly with a brush laden with thinned oil paint. Working outside-in first, adding a first layer of background paint and using it to refine the sketch. Then the faces of our star duo, followed by the boat. Coming back in for the bodies. A long drying time. Repeating the outside-in and inside-out building of layers, darkening the darks, making the shadows more moody, then the highlights on bodies and heads. This pair makes me smile BIG! That talon of the eagle resting on the pooch's behind - affection or instinctive grasping? A reminder they are friends, but also predator and prey.

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The November Reader Giveaway is in full swing! Leave a comment on any blog post this month to be automatically entered to win a Question Exchange between thee and me!

Last month's winner was artist/photographer/teacher/podcaster and blogger
​ Carl Stoveland, and we had a blast diving into some deep questions.  Here is Part One of our hour-long conversation. Parts Two-Five will be posted over the next couple of weeks.  Take a look! And I would love to hear your feedback.
​Leave a comment below!

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​The once-a-year
gesso madness
murder-your-darlings sale
ends Saturday, November 29th!

Grab your favorites!
Click on the Santa to shop.

(and thanks hugely to all who have already rescued art
​ from the gesso monster! I am so delighted!)