Hans Heysen - Sheep, The Nutcracker - Tchaikovsky, We Gather Together - Adrian Valerius

 In the excitement of Thanksgiving preparations and celebration with family this week, I forgot all about publishing this post I had prepared so, sorry it's late....  Hope your celebration was meaningful.... 

 Happy Thanksgiving!  We have so much to be thankful for!!  Don't miss the link to a lovely Thanksgiving medley at the end of this post....

This is our last painting by Hans Heysen and seems to me to be typical of his work.  The huge, wonderful trees and the far distant view, with a few cattle or sheep.  Such lovely colors are in his sky and in the middle distance and far off mountains!  Cool colors like blues and blue-greens make things recede while warm golds and browns bring things forward.  Notice also how he uses the sizes of trees to give you a feeling of distance.  The tree on the right is quite a bit smaller, as well as greyed in color and having less detail than the trees on the left, making it look distant.  Then look at the tiny trees in the distance which are miniscule in comparison with the two in the front that dominate the picture.  I love how he uses such lovely colors on the tree trunk, pinks, violet and blues as well as the golds and orange.  If you enjoy watercolor - this would be a fun painting to copy, even just the trees in the foreground.  

Let's finish up The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky this week. 

I hope to spend December celebrating the birth of Christ in art, music and poetry, but this week we'll have one more Thanksgiving poem in the form of a hymn.  We Gather Together is a favorite of mine.  The words are below and a link to aYoutube video of children singing this hymn:  We Gather Together ,by Adrian Valerius.

We Gather Together Hymn

We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing;
He chastens and hastens His will to make known.
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing.
Sing praises to His Name; He forgets not His own.

Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,
Ordaining, maintaining His kingdom divine;
So from the beginning the fight we were winning;
Thou, Lord, were at our side, all glory be Thine!

We all do extol Thee, Thou Leader triumphant,
And pray that Thou still our Defender will be.
Let Thy congregation escape tribulation;
Thy Name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free!


And a lovely Thanksgiving Medley - Thanksgiving Medley