Search for Hope---Sunset at Mount LeConte

by Catherine Ludwig Donleycott

Original - Not For Sale

Price

Not Specified

Dimensions

12.000 x 16.000 x 0.010 inches

Title

Search for Hope---Sunset at Mount LeConte

Artist

Catherine Ludwig Donleycott

Medium

Painting - Watercolor On Paper

Description

On a beautiful autumn day, in October 1980, watching the sunset as I drove along I40 in Cary, a suburb of Raleigh, North Carolina, to pick up my son at his father’s house, I felt only pain from all my seemingly failed relationships, including the one with my 10-year-old son Patrick. Can you imagine pain as intense as a sunset?

As I waited in the car for my son Patrick to come out, I sketched the sunset on a napkin. I combined both the sunset I had just seen and one in my memory, from Mount L’Cont in the Blue Ridge Mountains two years before. It had been my first weekend away from my family--on my own--after my marital separation.

On that seven-mile hike up the mountain in late September, I met a man who deeply touched my heart. He took me to the edge of the top of the mountain to wait for a break in the clouds so that we could see the sunset...

A week after sketching the sunset in the car, during my watercolor painting class at the Palette Gallery in Cary, North Carolina, my head hurt so horribly that I felt I would surely die. I kept trying to find pictures of trees to replace the road in my sketch. Finally, when the teacher chided me about not having time to paint, I began.

When it was almost complete, my teacher suggested that I put in the dead tree. When I only scratched in a small one, she said, "No, this way" as she took my brush and scratched in the dead one...

With a surge of relief at having created such a beautiful representation of the raw emotion I was feeling, I released a flock of birds, representing my children, to fly off into the sunset.

“Go, show me the way,” I whispered, the way to hope.

Mount LeConte is the third highest peak in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park! There are 4 sub peaks above 6,000 feet on the mountain: West Point, High Top, Cliff Tops and Myrtle Point. At Myrtle Point, you'll have panoramic views, and it's the best spot on Mount LeConte to watch a sunrise! Cliff Top also offers breathtaking views. To get to the summit of Mount LeConte, you have several trail options. You can take the Alum Cave Trail, the Boulevard Trail, the Bullhead Trail, the Rainbow Falls Trail, or the Trillium Cap.

This painting--Titled "Search for Hope"--is also on the cover of my book: "Long Way Home," about my path to becoming an artist and designer.


Featured in FAA groups:
1. Sunrise Sunsets 8/30/2020
2. Created by Southern Artists 8/30/2020
3. Images that Excite 8/31/2020
4. Natures Wonders Paintings 8/31/2020
5.. Just Perfect 9/2/2020
6. Covid-19 Mask Group 9/3/2020
7. Beauty of Art 9/5/2020
8. Everything Sunset 9/5/2020
9. Non Photography 9/9/2020
10. Emotive Art 9/11/2020
11. Peopleless Scenic Landscape 9/12/2020
12. Your Story of Art 10/27/2020
13. Created by My Hands - Non Digital 10/27/2020
14. Promote your Work 10/28/2020
15. !0 Plus 10/30/2020
16. The Art of Watercolor 10/30/2020
17. New FAA Uploads Limit One Per Day 10/31/2020
18. Out of the Ordinary 10/31/2020
19. Bedroom Art Gallery 11/08/2020
20. No Place Like Home 11/13/2020

To see my art and publicity history, new original paintings, and garden design, go to:
WEBSITEs:
catherinedesigns.com
CatherineLudwigDonleycott.com

Uploaded

August 30th, 2020

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