Art download: The mountains keep rising

On the blue of distance.

“For many years, I have been moved by the blue at the far edge of what can be seen, that color of horizons, of remote mountain ranges, of anything far away.”

— Rebecca Solnit

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Hello there! And welcome to Dandelion Seeds, an illustrated newsletter that is hand-drawn and hand-lettered, from my desk to yours.

This week marks the end of what could be called the first official season of Dandelion Seeds. Two months ago today, I shared the first chapter of “Home is a Window Seat,” and since then, I’ve loved sharing sneak peeks, the full essay, and even a special edition inspired by your own window seat stories.

That means there’s only one thing left to share before this illustrated essay series is complete: a free art download from the story that you are welcome to use and enjoy in your day-to-day life, inspired by my painting of the Andes mountains.

But first, I want to share a little about the process of bringing this painting to life:

Something you might not know about me is that I can be a rather impatient artist.

If a scene isn’t coming together by the point that I feel it should, I can get in a bit of a huff about it, and that’s exactly what happened with this painting.

At first, I really struggled with how to portray the snow-capped mountains. I couldn’t decide whether to start with a dark background and add layers of snow on top, or start light and then go dark.

My husband Jose — who’d taken Elena to see his family so I could have some time to paint — just so happened to walk in the door right between photos 2 and 3 above, and the first thing I said to him was, “I think I need to just start over with this one.”

But then, something told me to add that thin band of dark blue you can see on the horizon of photo 3, and suddenly the painting began to bring me joy. That one band of blue gave the whole scene a new sense of depth, and it gave me just the momentum I needed to see the painting through to completion.

In her book, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Rebecca Solnit even has a name for this shade of blue — the blue of distance:

“The blue at the horizon, the blue of land that seems to be dissolving into the sky, is a deeper, dreamier, melancholy blue, the blue at the farthest reaches of the places where you see for miles, the blue of distance…

“For many years, I have been moved by the blue at the far edge of what can be seen, that color of horizons, of remote mountain ranges, of anything far away. The color of that distance is the color of an emotion, the color of solitude and of desire, the color of there seen from here, the color of where you are not.”

I’ve always been moved by that last phrase: the color of where you are not.

Because the truth is, I’m not only an impatient artist; I can also be impatient in life, always eager to be further along on things than I am.

And so I’m grateful for both the process of working on this illustration, and for Rebecca Solnit’s poignant words, for the reminder that even when we aren’t yet where we want to be — in a painting, in a project, in life itself — there’s still beauty to be found in the journey of getting there.

There’s beauty in the blue of distance.

And now, for the downloads:

This month, I’ve created two new iPhone wallpapers — one featuring my painting of the Andes from “Home is a Window Seat,” and another with a few lines from the essay hand-lettered over the artwork. All you need to do is click on the button below each image to download it for free.

See you next week!
Candace