Describe heaven?  What do you think it looks like?  The mountain I climbed in Tonglu was called Tian Qi Shan, meaning Heaven Place Mountain!  The misty fog was heavy Sunday morning when started our climb, all 200 teachers, children and spouses!  It was like a sidewalk up the hill with steps and stops to have tea, look at coy fish, run through the bamboo forest, take pictures of children and adults acting like children.

Heaven do you picture it in the clouds, well then I was there.  The light poured through like shimmering crystals onto the sparkling river flowing in and about the mountains.  The light bounced and played on the tall grasses growing out of the cliffs.  Amazingly beautiful.  The Chinese ink watercolor landscapes I had seen over the years had clouds weaving in and out of the pictures, little did I know today I would see the inspiration for these paintings.  I took picture after picture trying to savor the moment, research for future paintings.

Today I read up on ink paintings.  One artist described the paintings as having a life of their own.  He was commissioned to paint four dragons and did, but left their eyes off.  The buyers wanted to know why.  The artist said if he painted the eyes it would come alive.  The buyer persisted and the artist painted two sets of eyes on his finished dragons and to the buyers surprise the dragons came alive and jumped off the paper.   The artist refused to add eyes to the other two dragons and the painting is as it was, two dragons no eyes.  An artist that can create the moment, the feeling, the life he feels can make the viewer feel that same moment in time.  Today I will paint a landscape of heaven, the heaven I saw in the mountains.  Probably no dragons though.  They might come alive and mess up my apartment!