painting of a ship on the ocean with pelicans

First, the oil painting, then the story behind it… make sure you don’t miss your challenge invitation. Do you accept?

Watch me paint this seascape in 2 minute time-lapse. It was my first time painting on a canvas this large.

“The Steamship Savannah was the first ship to cross the Atlantic by steam. What a happy, exhilarating feeling it must have been to stand on the shores, watching this pioneering ship set sail…
When anything is possible, everything is. May we be inspired by those who took this maiden voyage and showed us how to dream and achieve.”

– from the book “50 Oil Paintings Inspired by Savannah, Georgia” by artist Natalie Buske Thomas

Update to the above story…

I’d planned on more voyages of my own. After our return from living in Ireland, there was no reason for the adventures to end, but our travels were ill fated. The only places we were “going”, were through the spirit of discovery of the mind.

Pioneering new ways to think, create, and share is a bit like the power of steam. Steam power was invented as a solution to problems, namely as an engine to pump out flooded coal mines. We too often discover something new through the “power of steam”, an innovative solution to a problem that sets us sailing on an unexpected and exhilarating adventure.

Natalie Buske Thomas at Celtic Sea Coast

Tomorrow is the launch of my pioneering oil painting adventure, using technology in a way that no artist has ever done before. I’ve seized the opportunity to try Amazon’s new feature to embed video into e-books, and the book will be offered in a free promotion that should get a lot of attention. I’m ready!

This spirit of discovery wasn’t quite the thrill I’d been pining for… for years now I’ve wanted my art to “come alive” as viewers read my books, but it’s a grand start! For the first time, the technology exists to pioneer merging books and art in an innovative way. As time goes on, I plan to step up my game and create the illusion of a story coming alive as its being painted.

Because my file sizes are enormous for e-book format standards, today’s technology (available to us average yokels) doesn’t yet have this capacity. I could only choose one moving picture (one video to embed). The others had to be linked to. Viewers must click on the link and watch my painting videos hosted on my own independent website. But, in one glorious part of the voyage, my art “comes alive” inside the book, or so it should… if the reading device works as expected.

Another somewhat disappointing bit is that the video doesn’t spontaneously play. It seems that viewers must click play. I also had to downsize my 100+ images a little bit. They are still high resolution though, and such a very long way from the early days when a single image would crash an entire website! Now we can put sharp, full color, massive images and VIDEO into digital books.

Wow! I’d have eaten all of this up when I was a child bookworm. But who says I can’t be excited now, in 2021? Aren’t we all still that child inside? Embrace the thrills of the future! What can we do tomorrow? What can we do TODAY?

When life took an unexpected turn of unemployment, hardship and grieving the loss of a parent I was the caregiver for, my reaction was to flee. I escaped with my family into a whole new life of travel and adventure, selling most of what we owned, and leaving it all behind. But that journey ended abruptly and with no hope of continuance.

How would I solve the problem of being “grounded”, perhaps for years to come? Like the power of steam, a solution to one problem may lead to an exhilarating voyage. I turned my desire for adventure inward, and made intellectual, creative, and spiritual discoveries.

I challenge you to do the same. Perhaps you’re already sailing on new seas, and just need encouragement to keep going, or maybe you’re still standing on the shore. Your hopes and dreams are at reach, believe it! And when we think we’ve reached the end of who we are, we realize that we’ve only just begun.