Amy Boucher Pye

Tag: Leo Boucher

  • Watercolor Wednesday: Glory to God all the days

    By Leo Boucher. Used with permission; all rights reserved.

    We’re in the Easter season – Eastertide, as it’s known in Anglican circles, when for 50 days after Easter Sunday we continue to celebrate the risen Jesus. We should be sipping bubbly and embracing our loved ones. 

    But with the pandemic sinking into us more deeply as the days go by, it doesn’t feel very celebratory, does it. Makes me think of the wonderful Rob Lacey, who wanted to call the story of his healing from cancer, “Halle-blinkin’-luia.” (He was healed, but he later died.) We might have to celebrate through gritted teeth and the strength of our wills.

    Perhaps this year celebrating just means breathing out our laments and praying with the Psalms as we hold on to our faith. 

    Wherever you are in the spectrum of celebrating, or feeling ever so weary from it all, I pray that you will have some moments of peace, joy, and love this day. 

  • Watercolor Wednesday: Life before all of this

    Seeing people grouped together now, such as in this painting by my dad, seems to stem from a different time. It feels poignant and removed from our experience today. I wonder how life will be different when we come out of lockdown?

    How are you doing? Are you missing any gatherings in particular?

    [By Leo Boucher. Used with permission; all rights reserved. Picture is of a snapshot from Rudesheim in Germany, a city my parents visited when they took a trip down the Rhine river.]

  • Watercolor Wednesday: Living water

    A sky-blue stream bringing color to brown earth and trees.

    I find this recent painting that my dad created so evocative. It captures those weeks in Minnesota that seemingly go on a long time – when the snow has melted but the signs of Spring feel far off. Brown is the color of the ground and perhaps of the soul, as things can feel lifeless and perhaps hopeless.

    Maybe you feel a bit brown these days, as the stay-inside orders and all that is behind them affect you with some small – or huge – griefs. Yet the stream with its color and life brings hope to the scene, just as God’s living water brings life and grace as it cleanses and renews us.

    May you, during these uncertain times, receive the gift of God’s living water.

  • Weekly Watercolor: Behind city walls

    A street in Rome lined with colorful buildings with two figures walking across the street.
    By Leo Boucher. Used with permission; all rights reserved.

    As the coronavirus pandemic continues to build in so many countries, city streets are becoming increasingly deserted. What I like about this painting by my dad, which is a look down a Roman street, is the contrast between the bright colors of the buildings with the lone figures on the street. Let’s say they are self-isolating and are out for their one spot of exercise that day. What lies behind all those colorful buildings? What stories could be told?

    What stories are you hearing from behind closed doors? How can I pray for you at this time of fear and anxiety? May you know the peace that passes beyond any city walls; may the peace of Christ be yours this day.

  • Watercolor Wednesday: A time to reflect

    Grey and gloomy clouds lay heavy over a bridge in which a few people walk along.
    By Leo Boucher. Used with permission; all rights reserved. 

    The beginning of Lent can feel a bit like this watercolor of my dad’s – grey, overcast, a bit dreary and rainy. Very English weather, in fact. We don’t know how long we’ll feel like this, and if the clouds will lift.

    Many Christians don’t observe Lent – they see the work of Jesus on the cross as freeing them from their sins, and thus Easter is the moment to celebrate, not the time before. I respect that, but also appreciate these forty days before Easter as a time to prepare myself for Resurrection Sunday. A time to examine my heart and mind before God, asking the Holy Spirit to search me and make me more like Jesus.

    However you observe the season – or do not – I pray that some shafts of Light will shine through and give you warmth and grace.

  • Weekly Watercolor: A cabin in the woods

    A little red cabin nestled among trees with mountains in the background.
    By Leo Boucher. Used with permission; All rights reserved.

    Are you more of a mountains or a beach person? Mind, I don’t think you have to be one or the other. I think I’ll claim both. I love the refreshment of soaking up the sun, listening to the waves pounding in musically. But I also love drinking in the cool mountain air, looking up in wonder or cozying down in a welcoming cabin in the woods.

    Take a few moments to transplant yourself to this little mountain cabin. What does it look like inside? Who is with you? What are the day’s activities that you look forward to? What will be the feast you return to – perhaps something cooked over the fire? How do you think God might meet you in this mountain cabin?

  • Watercolor Wednesday: City life

    An abstract painting of city buildings in red with swathes of color for the sky and foreground.
    By Leo Boucher. Used with permission; all rights reserved.

    Have you ever thought about how life in the new heaven and new earth will revolve around a city? Well, that’s the picture we see in Revelation 21:1–2: “Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.” For many people, living in a city is not their ideal. Pollution, noise, crowding, crime – all things that they want to avoid. And, of course, the lack of the beauty of nature surrounding them.

    But the city John speaks of in Revelation will be like none we’ve ever experienced. I can only imagine what it will be like. We’ll definitely not experience excess noise or overcrowding!

    Take a few moments to enjoy this abstract painting by my dad, Leo Boucher, of a part of New York City, as you contemplate the new city.

    Do you like city life? Why or why not?

  • Watercolor Wednesday: Revealing what’s underneath

    A watercolor of evergreen trees in various hues in a winter scene of whites and yellows.
    By Leo Boucher. Used with permission; all rights reserved.

    Our first painting of 2020! My dad just finished this wonderful landscape of life in Minnesota with its atmospheric snow. To create it, he covered the canvas with a number of coats of white paint. Then he painted with his watercolors, and when the paint was almost dry, he took a whittling knife and scraped off some of the paint to get the white highlights. I love it!

    Sit with it for a moment as you contemplate the new year. How could scraping back some of the color in your life actually produce something more beautiful?

  • Watercolor Wednesday: Stark hope

    A late autumn scene of a brook with bare trees and one fallen tree with yellow leaves.
    By Leo Boucher. Used with permission; all rights reserved.

    I meant to take a walk in the nearby brook today, but some stuff happened and I didn’t make it there before darkness descended – which when I checked the time of sundown, was 3.51pm. That’s feeling early. I have to be more organized to enjoy the outdoors in December.

    But my dad sent me this watercolor from a photo I took in the brook recently, and that made me feel like I’d enjoyed its beauty (although my Fitbit doesn’t reflect the accompanying exercise). I love how he’s captured the stark beauty – the remnants of autumn and the bare branches.

    What remnants of color are hanging on in the wastelands of your life?

    How can you pray for more color to surround you, or for life to grow in what may seem like a wasteland?

  • Watercolor Wednesday: A bridge of hope

    A Roman bridge covering a darkish blue river with a blue sky and a barren tree to the side.
    By Leo Boucher. Used with permission; all rights reserved.

    A fitting scene as we start Advent, for my Dad’s watercolor shows a barren tree, but signs of hope too in the blue of the flowing river – maybe it’s the river of life? – and the shades of beauty in the sky. 

    How could Advent be a bridge for you this year as you approach the Christmas season? Could you see it as a time of waiting in hope, of joyful expectation, even when the trees feel barren?