Beyond Slavery

As an artist, there is one thing that stands out in everything we see, that is the beauty.  Even though there are things all around us trying to take away from the beauty, the beauty we see is always there and then comes all the thoughts as we are painting.  Well, at least that's what happens to me.  As this painting was beginning to take shape and the thoughts begin to whirl around in my head, especially with the events of late here at the end of 2014, I saw this as a look into the past and future of our ever changing culture.

I entitled this piece "Beyond Slavery"  particularly because, I was under the impression we had moved past that.  Apparently though, some are still stuck there, dragging the bitterness around on a daily basis and trying to infect us all with hatred.  My heart goes out to those who are determined not only to drag themselves down but are also trying to take all of us down with them.  These are the ones that walk around with a ball and chain, dragging their feet from the heaviness of bitterness, seeking revenge and destruction of anyone that might get in their way.

Take a close look at this painting;  The field is empty, because we have moved on.  Yes, most of us have moved on, most of us are living in the now and striving for a better future. We have moved from the field to the promise of a lovelier day, a wonderful day, a gorgeous sky full of beauty, promise and possibilities.

As in all of our lives, there have been failures and there have been mistakes.  Just as we are thankful for the flowers, we have to be thankful for the mud.  Just as we are thankful for the accomplishments, we have to be thankful for the failures and what each failure taught us.  If you are afraid to try, you will never go anywhere, you will never taste the life that God has given you, you will never reach your full potential. We all must experience some failures and some mistakes to get there.

But, once you have made it past a certain point, then leave it there.  Remember the failure, only for the lesson it taught you.  The heartaches, the disappointments, the mistakes have brought us all to the point we are at today, right now, at this very moment.  Rise above it and look past the point where we once were (the cotton field) and into the bright, beautiful sky of the now and the future.  If we dwell in the past, we dishonor our ancestors and forefathers who fought the battles and made the mistakes for us to learn from.  If you act like a criminal, you either want to be one or think it’s your destiny for some reason.  Why?  "Gird up you loins" as God put it and be who you are meant to be, use the mistakes of others as your teacher. The hard work and burdens carried by generations before us were not intended to create bitterness, they were intended to create Freedom!

We can remain enslaved by our bitterness or we can grow a pair of wings and fly far away from it.

I'm not stuck in the cotton field.  Are you?

Art: Saw Your Painting

 

 

This was one of the first paintings I tried on lace.  There were things I liked about it and things I didn’t.  I thought that because it was lace, I needed to have it behind glass for it to last.  We think lace is delicate, I found out differently when I took a big risk.

I am preparing for an art show, trying to get everything together and in frames.  I wanted to include this particular piece, but here is the way it was framed.

 

And it was behind a piece of glass.  For some strange reason, I just don’t like my work behind glass.  I found a frame I thought would look nice but, it was a bit smaller than my picture.  This lace is stretched over the top of canvas hardboard, so the only way I could crop it to go into the frame was by sawing it.  I swallowed pretty hard, made my marks and began sawing.   

 

Strangely enough, the hardest part of it all was getting through the lace which in no way could be separated from the the canvas or the painting would be ruined.

This is what I got for taking the chance:

Sometimes it’s worth taking a risk.

 

This piece was also too big for the frame I picked out, but it is on stretched canvas.  Not a problem.

 

 

I just took the knife and cut it off from the backside of the stretcher strips it was stretched onto.   After figuring out where I wanted to cut, I just marked it and cut.  Afterwards, I re-stretched it onto hard board, taped it and framed it.  I actually cut a couple inches off the height and a couple off the width.  This is what I ended up with:

 

 

As I was doing all this sawing and cutting, I was thinking…………………….

Sometimes you may think it would be so nice to be able to cut away pieces of your past, those things you did that hurt someone else and even those things that damaged your own life and self-esteem.  As hard as it may seem, we have to be able to forgive ourselves and move on.  If God can forgive us then we surely should be able to forgive ourselves.

He can wipe away our tears and forget our wrongs.  He will give us opportunity after opportunity to get it right.  He doesn’t require us to use a saw or a knife, all we have to do is simply ask for His help and believe that He will do what He has promised.  Of course this won’t erase the memories, but He can help us to rise above it all.

 

Romans 8:38-39 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Art: Overcoming Fear

 

 

This painting went through a great deal of changes before I was finally happy with it.  Kind of like we do as we grow and learn.

 

This is what it looked like yesterday and…………………….

I wasn’t happy with it at all!

I studied on it for awhile and I knew if it was ever going to a piece I didn’t mind showing or even giving away, it was going to have to go through some major changes.  Even though I was reluctant to actually paint out the vase, that’s what I knew I needed to do.

Sometimes in our lives we know we have to make changes and more times than not, they are very difficult, even scary.  If we are passionate about what we want to do, then we just have to push back our fears and dive in.  And we have help if we want it.

2nd Timothy 1:7  For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

Completely painting out part of the picture was pretty scary to me.  But I thought, God has given me the desire to use the talents He has given me to show love to other people, so I couldn’t give up.  This little painting would just end up in the trash or under my bed, tossed way back in the closet or something else very wasteful.  I liked the flowers and wanted to save them.

I couldn’t let myself be defeated, so I just dove in.  I’m glad I did.  I have a happy little painting that will either make money for me or I will give it away in hopes of making someone smile.

About the painting

Just in case your interested:

This is acrylic and watercolor pencil on stretched canvas.  The large flowers are cone flowers.  I just used regular craft paint.  After I was sure it was finished, I sprayed it with a clear matte sealer.  I used photos of the flowers and the rest was just imagination and determination.

Join my on my facebook page to view more of my work by clicking here.

Art: Galatians 5:22-23 The Answer

 

 

Suddenly one day I realized that I had just as much brain as the other fella.  I didn’t need someone who pumped themselves up as “chosen by God” to explain the Bible to me.

When I came across Galatians 5:22-23 in the Bible, a light went off.  The answer was not to spend your life trying to avoid it and being full of fear about what could happen, it was to jump right into it all and make the best of the life God has given us.

If I was constantly trying to avoid evil, then that was what I was constantly thinking about, evil.  But that’s not the way God intended us to be.  He created a beautiful world, full of beautiful things to enjoy.

There are always going to be ways to take a wonderful idea and use it for bad, but God meant it for good.

This particular illustration is of my favorite verse in God’s Word.  For me, it sums up just how we should try to be.  It is the ammunition we need to live the kind of life we were intended to live.

The painting is acrylic on barn wood.  It is an attempt to recreate the beauty of the words in the verse. 

Have a wonderful life, focus on the beauty all around you that God created for you.  It drowns out the evil that attempts to take over us all.  But, the battle is already won!

Art: Lighten Up a Bit!

 

 

Tending to take things very seriously and getting into the details, this burlap canvas gives me the perfect base to lighten up a bit.

Seriously, there is not much way that I can see, that you can get involved with the details of what your painting.  I have tried to figure a way to get a little more detail in the petals of the flowers, the grass or even the trees, but thankfully I haven’t found it.

I’m glad I haven’t found it.  It gives me the ability to be more free and is teaching me to be a bit more loose with my pieces.  Which is something I am having to force myself to do, loosen up.

That also goes for other areas of my life.  I’m too serious.  I feel guilty when I laugh at something that is brought across in such a way to be funny, but it’s really a serious issue.

Can you picture Jesus laughing?  Surely He did.  Was He as serious as the master artist’s painted Him on canvas to be, all the time?  That’s the picture I see when I try to envision what He would do in a particular situation, that serious portrait of Him, that all of us in my generation grew up with.  I believe He did laugh and He enjoyed His Father’s creation.  I believe He laughed and smiled at the innocence of children.  And I can even see Him laughing at some of our mistakes and our lack of judgement in areas of our lives, that aren’t critical, but we think they are.

I have had to concentrate on loosing up and learning to enjoy life.  For so many years I was in a cult that taught, don’t, don’t, don’t.  But I have realized there are actually more do’s and more things to celebrate and be happy about, rather than constantly be looking over your shoulder afraid the devil (you know that little red thingy with horns and a pitch fork) was going to creep into your life somehow.

Loosen up, enjoy life, enjoy the creation that God made for us to enjoy.  That’s what I say to myself.  I’m sure there are others that have to tell themselves the same thing for one reason or another.

In Romans 8 it says, “…. to be spiritually minded is life and peace”.

Have a wonderful and creative day!

Art: He Smiled

Took this painting into work one day to show the man who supplying the wood for me to paint on what I was doing with it.  He said he would like one.  I asked him the normal questions, what would you like for me to paint for you, do you have a photograph of something special and on and on I went with my questions.

As we were talking another man walked up and said I’d like to have a painting.  He is an older man that is probably past retiring age, but cannot afford to retire.  He works two jobs.  He has also had some severe challenges with his health recently.  I asked him my normal questions about what he might like to have painted. He didn’t have an answer for me, but said he would think about it.  He did however ask me how much it would cost.  I told him we’d talk about it later after he decided what picture he’d like me to paint.

 As the days went by he would stop by to say good morning and oil my machine for me, as he had always done. I would ask him if he had come up with any ideas for his painting and he would just look down toward the floor and shake his head, no.  Then one day he said to me that he would just like to have something painted by me.

Well, what an invitation to give a painting away.  What more did I need than that nudge God gives me.  So I began thinking about it.

Just a few days ago, he came by my machine, didn’t speak, didn’t even look up.  His head was hanging so low, it was obvious and concerned me, something was wrong.  As he made his rounds again later that day, I walked over to him and asked if he was feeling ok.  I commented that it was quite obvious something wasn’t right, he wasn’t smiling as he usually did.  He just looked up at me, still all slouched over and said, as I looked into his red, sad eyes, “Honey, my self esteem is just about gone, they have just about destroyed it”.  I wasn’t sure who, they, were, but it didn’t matter, he was hurt.

I took the painting to work with me again, the one he had already seen and first sparked his interest in wanting one. I told him I’d just like for him to have it, how much he meant to me and how much it would mean to me if he would accept it.

And he just smiled.  He took the picture and rode off on his little cart, smiling.    Even if the smile is just for a moment maybe that moment will come again and again whenever he looks at my painting.

So this painting is now hanging in the home of a man, I hardly know.  But knew enough to know that he needed compassion.



Thank you God for the opportunity and privilege to make someone smile.

It’s the Simple Things

 

 

Now I know this might not excite you, but it excites me quite a bit.  I love to paint pictures, but I am just not to excited about painting on canvas.  So I thought maybe I would try wood.   I picked up some wood prepared for painting at the store and figured out that wood was definitely the thing I wanted to paint on.  But still, there was something that just didn’t satisfy me.  So I looked further. 

After putting out the word at work that I was looking for some weathered wood, a month or two  went by, several said they had some and would bring it to me, finally I had someone come through.  Now, I actually have real barn wood in hand and it’s like Christmas all over again for me.

Honestly, it felt like a gift from God.  And it is literally!  When painting on this wood that actually came from an old building of some sort, I think about all the years it’s been around, all the folks that have possibly handled it and now it’s mine to pass on to someone else.

Using this old wood as a canvas for my art is perfect.  God created this wood, He grew the tree, He formed the lines within the grain and it just puts me in the right frame of mind to start painting a scene of something He created, a beautiful landscape, a skyscape or seascape or flower.

It’s the simple things that God has given us all that seem to go on without notice that intrigues me.  Each small line in a grain of wood, all the different butterflies, the clouds in the sky, a puddle of water with little pebbles scrattered here and there, a gentle gust of wind out of nowhere on a windless day, a single flower standing up just a bit taller than the others.

Such simple, beautiful and miraculous wonders that speak of God’s Love for us.  Thank you Lord for showing me You love even me!  If we would just take the time to notice, He whispers to our hearts every moment of every day about how much He loves us.

When God Nudges–Don’t Hesitate

 

 

This is an illustration I have wanted to do for several years.  I have started a couple of times and each time I went wrong with it somewhere and just never finished.  Last week I broke out the pencils and was successful with a drawing of my boots.  So I decided to try this again.

It has a special meaning to me.  It’s an illustration of a lesson God walked me through.

I seem to always be thinking, coming up with neat ideas, but up until this lesson I rarely ever acted on any of the ideas I had.  Course, I know that as many ideas as I have, it would be impossible to act on all of them, but this idea was different.

There was much tribulation in my home with my children.  My daughter and I were at odds.  Just so happens I was taking a class at church called “One Month to Live” based on a book written by Kerry and Chris Shook. It was hard to concentrate on the class with things at home like they were.  But this one particular night, we were talking about acting on the things you want to do.  After all what if you were told you only had one month to live?  But I’d always had some excuse for not acting on my ideas, not enough money, not enough time, they would think it was stupid and on and on.

The idea?  Send my daughter roses at school on Valentine’s Day and tell her I love her.  I almost backed out as I was driving home because I was afraid she would be laughed at by her friends when they found out the roses were from her mother, not a boyfriend.  But I did it anyway.  The next day at work I made the call, ordered the flowers and said thank you Lord for this idea and thank you Lord for helping me not to back out.

I received a thank you from my daughter and this story along with it.  At school that day the flowers were to arrive, others were being called to come to the office because they had been sent flowers.  My daughter made the comment to her friend that she wished someone would send her flowers. No one had ever sent her flowers.  Next person called, was my daughter.  I am sure that no one knew how significant that was to me, knowing that had it not been for my Lord, I would have backed out of that idea and completely missed that moment.  It meant so much to me and proved to me just how much He loves me and wants me to be happy.  I think our Father does this to all of us all the time.  He gives us ideas and wants us to follow His lead.  How many opportunities have you missed by not acting on an idea, an idea that God Himself probably placed in your heart and on your mind.

When God nudges, don’t hesitate, He loves you.

God is preparing you for flight……….

As we experience different aspects of life we grow, learn and begin to be able to say what we feel and think.

When my oldest was about 2 years old she obviously wasn’t feeling well and I kept trying to figure out what was wrong.  When I would try to communicate with her, asking her where it hurt, she would say “my tummy hurts”.  But when I finally decided it was time to go to the doctor, we discovered she had pneumonia.  She was telling me the only thing she knew to say, she wasn’t familiar with the location of lungs or phrases like, it’s hard to breathe.  But she was telling me as best as she could.

As she grew and learned she was more able to tell me exactly where she was hurting or uncomfortable.  This is just an example of common, basic learning and necessary for life.

But as we become older a more spiritual education begins to take place, an emotional journey I guess you could say.  A journey that God is in complete control of.  Whether your parents are believers in God and teaching you His Word is really of no consequence.  God is preparing you for flight, a flight of your own.  Whether or not your parents, or those who are in control of your life have it all figured out spiritually or not really doesn’t matter.  God is in control of it all.  He is preparing each of us for flight into this world as a spiritual being and our flight when we leave this world to join Him.

Rebellion, vanity and greed can get in our way of even the easiest lessons in life, as they can the spiritual lessons also.  Earthly and spiritual life lessons continue on a daily basis as long as we are alive.  The spiritual lessons will go on and on.  I’d like to get them as they come along so I can continue on to the next one.  But certain things in our lives keep us from getting it the first, second, third and sometimes even more times than we care to admit.

But through all the lessons and things we learn, we become better at articulating our spiritual feelings.  Here is where our wings come in to play.  When someone is hurting, you can say, “Can I help”?  Maybe you have gone through something similar and can lend a helping hand or just an ear.  Your wings are flapping now with the understanding of why you went through something, it was simply to help someone else and Glorify God in the process.  And you realize that God was preparing you for flight for this journey quite sometime ago.  Through the lesson, you learned how to help another.

Isn’t that what it’s all about?

If you like this art or enjoyed the story, click here to purchase a print.

Paper woven with LOVE

Such interesting items can be created when the mood, setting and inspiration is just right.  The more natural the ingredients are, the more inspired I am.  This little crafty artwork consists of wood and paper.  There is a bit of wire and a few nails, but the basis is “natural”.  God has given us so much to work with, seems a shame to let it go to waste.  Do you have abilities or talents God has given you?  Do you use them to glorify Him?  What happens to our talents when we don't use them?  I almost let mine slip through my fingers, or I don't know maybe it did slip through my fingers and that is why I am struggling with it so.  Don't let that happen to you.  Realize what you have been given and use it while you have it.  I still keep trying and this is my latest attempt.

You can see through the woven paper, so the wall you hang it on will be the background color behind the woven heart.  The buttons are wood with an acrylic wash of the colors, lilac, green and orange.  Then white polka dots applied with a paint pen.

You may want to recreate it yourself.  Try it, put your own personality into it, use whatever word you would like.  Try putting a butterfly or a peace sign in the middle instead of a heart.  You can do it, it’s simple, here’s how.

You will need:  Check out the products in my store here.
Paper rush
Stretcher strip frame
Natural hemp
Wood buttons
Craft wire
Nails
Glue

Here’s the steps in creating this piece:
Put your stretcher strips together to make the frame.  Put a little glue at the joints.  Paint the front side of the frame with the color you desire using acrylic paint watered down to just tint the wood.

Once dry,  attach strips of paper rush from the top to the bottom of the frame on the backside with nails.
Then attach the strips of paper rush to the back side of the frame on one side with a nail, then weave in and out of the strips that run from the top to the bottom on the frame, then attach to the opposite side with a nail.  Do this until you get the fill you desire.  You might like less than I have in the piece or more.  It’s up to you.

Turn the frame over to see the front side, be careful of the nails.  Use the acrylic colors of your choice watered down, so you will only get a tint of the color and apply to the woven paper rush.

Choose your shape and use wire to apply it to the woven paper rush, wrapping it around the paper rush strips as you go to help it keep it’s shape.  I chose something easy for this first time, a heart.

When you are happy with your shape, use natural hemp to macrame’ using the wire as you inside cord.

Apply paint to your shape, which is the natural hemp.  Keep the paint watered down just to tint the shape outline.
 
Once the shape is complete, use more of the natural hemp to weave in and out of the paper rush inside the shape you have chosen.

To make your word, begin twisting natural hemp around craft wire, clamping the end of the wire over the hemp.  Once you have enough twisted onto the wire to shape your word, clamp the end.
Shape your word and attach to the woven paper rush with small pieces of wire.  If you desire you can also paint your word with the same acrylic colors and watered down technique as you used on the frame, the paper rush and the hemp.

Clip off the excess nail tips on the front of the frame with a wire cutter.

Paint buttons with your choice of acrylic colors watered down.

Using a strong glue, dab a small dot on top of the nails, lay buttons onto the glue spots.
Once dry, you can put little white polka dots on the buttons if you like with a paint pen.

When everything is dry apply a hanger to the back of the frame and you have a wonderful gift or a new piece to hang in your own home.

See what all you can do with this artsy craft.  I’d love to see what you do.

Here are some different views of this piece.  If you don’t like the open air look with out anything behind your weaving, you could put fabric, cardboard or even colored matte board behind it.  Use your imagination.


             

                   

Hope you enjoy making this.  Happy artsy crafting!

Inspired by God’s Love

I guess when you first look at this crafty little plaque, you might not, at first, think about God’s Love.  I haven’t ran across many people in my life time that make me think of God’s Love.  But He still gives all of us many opportunities to see His Love for us.
He shows us His Love in the flowers, birds, trees, the air we breath, and the freedom to live our lives for Him as we see fit to glorify Him.  There are countless ways He shows His Love for us, too many to mention here.  He freed us from the law and replaced that law with Grace by giving the life of His only Son to free us.
As I groped to find a way to express what makes me think of love here on this earth, I thought of the beauty of God’s creation that He shows Himself through for everybody to see.
It might be hard to see God’s Love through people all the time, but as the bird sings, the flowers bloom, the butterfly flitters by, the sun rises and sets, the tides roll in and out, the trees sway in a gust of wind and the rain falls to clear away the dust and give life, we can definitely see Him and feel His presence.
Thank you God for giving me a way to share the love you have put in my heart with others.
Today, when a little bird calls out to you with a sweet song, I hope you will think about the only One that could have ever put that song in that little beating heart.  What a wonderful gift to give.

For a tutorial on how to make this sweet little frame and canvas to decorate for a gift or for your own home just click here.  You can have one ready to decorate in 5 easy steps.