Welcome to the final day of the 33 Paintings in 33 Days Project of Alaskan artist  Nikki Kinne and Wisconsin artist Helen Klebesadel.  I cannot believe the thirty-third day has  come so quickly.

My final painting, Water Lilies, is my largest to date in the series, and its already found a new home.   I had a wonderful time shaping the pedals and creating surface textures on the surface that disguised the twining stems below the surface.   I hope you enjoy looking at the painting even half as much as I enjoyed painting it.

I have also posted images of all 33 paintings.  Click through the posted photos to see them in relation to each other.

This project has been an amazing experience for me.  The commitment to daily painting is something I have promoted for years but all to often it was a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do suggestion.  Having committed to this process and received the grace and benefit of the experience I know that I will continue this commitment on my own for as long as I can manage.

You can see all the paintings in this project, including those painted by my collaborator Nikki Kinne on my blog here:  http://klebesadel.wordpress.com/2011/08/06/day-33-of-33-two-artists-share-a-painting-a-day-for-33-days/

For my 30th day’s artwork of the 33 painting-a-day series I am doing with Nikki Kinne, I reverted to a subject I’ve painted in the past.  Painting bluebirds was one of my first commissions. 

I remember fondly that both my Aunt Meg and my Grandmother Ruth asked me to paint them bluebird paintings.  It was especially significant because both were near the end of their lives when they requested these images.  Now I think of them as a sort of spirit guide, which actually means I pay close attention when one crosses my path.  For the rest of the world, in many many cultures,  they may represent the ‘bluebird of happiness,‘ but for me they symbolize stripping away the trappings of life and getting down to what really matters.  I think its interesting that in at least one European myth (The Blue Bird) with the bluebird at its center the moral of the story is “…that the search for happiness is ongoing, and it is to be found within oneself.”

Bluebirds  have always been symbolically significant to my family and others, but they are also an environmental success story.   Between the 1930s and the 1980’s the population of bluebirds in the US had declined by 90%. They were truly endangered. By the time I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s in southwestern Wisconsin, bluebirds were rare. Pesticides contaminated their invertebrate foods, and nesting cavities were in short supply. Sighting a bluebird was a rare treat that took on mythic proportions in my family. Bluebirds have come to symbolize all things good and beautiful.

Bluebird Restoration Association of Wisconsin (BRAW)  When BRAW was organized in 1986, it was estimated that the Eastern Bluebird population in its historic range had declined by 90% during the preceding 50 years due to changes in agriculture practices, competition from the House (English) Sparrow and European Starling, severe weather in its central and southern winter range, and the loss of nest sites, such as tree cavities and hollow wooden fence posts.  Today, bluebirds are common in suitable habitat thanks to the work of citizen volunteers placing bluebird nesting boxes in the right places and working to protect their habitat.  It makes me hopeful so I paint bluebirds of happiness and give them plenty to eat.