A Lifelong Love of Rocks... Becomes Art (HCA #1)

The lovely and inimitable @snook has kicked into life a Hive Community Activity — or HCA — for everyone, and perhaps to encourage a little more engagement and participation around here. You can read her post about it, here.

The topic for this HCA is "Rocks." What can mean basically anything "rocks" from collecting rocks, to climbing rocks, to rocking out. Why not have a go?

I guess rocks have always been part of my life. That is to say, I've been interested in rocks — fascinated by them, even — since I was a little kid.

A stone I painted, completely free hand! More about these, later

I suppose it could be argued that all little kids are interested in rocks in some way, whether to throw at something, skip on a pond or stack up in a big pile.

But I was fascinated by them in a more "involved" fashion than that... really and deeply looking at them and being interested in all the colors and textures and shapes.

Where I grew up (in Denmark), most of the geology was old glacial moraine clay from the last ice age, meaning that rocky debris could be found in nature that was both local along with some that had been carried by glaciers from as far away as northern Norway.

Some rocks from Denmark, including "Hag Stones" with the natural holes

There had also been substantial settlements in that part of the world for thousands of years, and it was not uncommon to find "flinty bits" from neolithic times. Of course, we all dreamed of finding a perfectly preserved flint dagger or axe head, but mostly we found discarded arrowheads that hadn't sheared as their original maker had wanted. There's a lot of flint in Denmark...

We traveled a lot, and I often ended up bringing rocks back from other countries where we sometimes visited beaches and the rocks looked different than they did back home.

Some pieces of Danish flint... these are ALL OVER the place, there

Back in 2006 — when I moved across the country from Texas to Washington state — the movers hated me because there were a number of boxes that were just ridiculously heavy. Although I "officially" claimed that the boxes were filled with encyclopedias and reference books, the truth was they were actually boxes of rocks!

No, I'm not kidding!

What I would never have guessed was that my love of rocks would gradually turn into a creative outlet.

You see, I paint on rocks (top photo). Our beaches around here have a wide variety of rocks from all over... for much the same reason as we had in Denmark: glaciers carried them here, some from as far away as Montana and northern Canada during the last ice age.

Smooth flat rocks for painting

Some of these local rocks — mostly basalt — are extraordinarily smooth as found in nature and about 15 years ago I ended up combining my love of doodling (I suppose it's really more than just a doodle) with particularly smooth rocks.

It started very simply and innocently, at the suggestion of my wife who thought it would be "kind of cool" if I could paint one of my intricate mandala designs — that I was drawing with pen and ink on paper — on a smooth rock so I tried.

One of my earliest attempts, circa 2011

And then I tried again, and a few more times, and then a friend saw these early endeavors on our coffee table and wanted one and so I made one here and there, and then I made one for somebody else and they gradually got more complicated and intricate and colorful.

Then somebody asked me if I would be willing to paint one "as a little party favor" for all the wedding guests at their daughter's wedding. Which turned out to be 106(!) rocks at which point I declared "that's nice, but I'm not doing that for free!"

That was in 2013.

Today these painted rocks — known better by their artistic or "brand" name Alchemy Stones — have become both my primary creative outlet, as well as my daily meditation. Whereas some people relax and let their brain go slack by filling in coloring books, I paint on rocks!

It's not exactly a business, but it's also not exactly not a business. We do go to 6-8 arts and craft shows and festivals every year, and the stones have become quite popular in our general region.

It's a far cry from my childhood fascination with rocks, but it certainly goes to show that picking up rocks have never become boring for me!

Thanks for visiting, and have a great Friday!

Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation! I do my best to answer comments, even if it sometimes takes a few days!

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Created at 2025.08.08 03:07 PST
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