A Hymn of Thanksgiving

The leaves of this crepe myrtle right outside our back door were glorious with yesterday’s late afternoon sun shining through.

I’ve been busy with painting rooms again, trying to spruce everything up for the holidays! And yesterday I painted a coffee table, which was a curbside find I’ve been using in the parlor.

We were planning a trip to Florida to join family for Thanksgiving, but Paul has an infection from an abrasion on the bottom of his foot, and is on crutches for a few weeks, so we decided not to make the trip this year. Instead, we’re going to some friends’ house in town for our holiday dinner. I’m bringing snickerdoodles and blackberry cobbler. Yum.

Just wanted to pop in and wish you all and Happy Thanksgiving, and share one of my absolute favorite hymns, For the Beauty of the Earth, words by Folliott S. Pierpoint:

For the beauty of the earth
For the glory of the skies,
For the love which
from our birth
Over and around us lies.

Lord of all, to Thee we raise,
This our hymn
of grateful praise.

For the beauty of each hour,
Of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale,
and tree and flower,
Sun and moon,
and stars of light.

For the joy of ear and eye,
For the heart and mind’s delight,
For the mystic harmony
Linking sense to sound and sight.

For the joy of human love,
Brother, sister, parent, child,
Friends on earth
and friends above,
For all gentle thoughts
and mild.

For each perfect gift of Thine,
To our race so freely given,
Graces human and divine,
Flowers of earth and buds of Heaven.

Lord of all, to Thee we raise,
This our hymn
of grateful praise.


Happy Thanksgiving, all!

The finished painting and a beautiful sunset

Here’s the final version of the oak tree painting:


In the Morning II © 2010 by Karen Mathison Schmidt
30 x 30 inches • oil on 2" cradled Gessobord
SOLD • private collection, Shreveport, Louisiana

After my last post, Denise asked if the painting she bought from me was the first In the Morning, but no, Denise, your painting is Oak Tree on a September Morning, pictured on the left. But you were right - it is the same tree as in this latest painting.


The first In the Morning, pictured on the right, was an acrylic I did back when we were still living in town. It’s one of the first ones I did after we moved back to Shreveport, and still is one of my favorites. Unless it’s moved since then, it lives in Greenville, Mississippi now.

Sometimes I miss living in town, but only sometimes. This afternoon, when I walked out to the road right around 5:20, this is the sight that greeted me:


How blessed am I, to be surrounded by such beauty every day!