Choose Hope

I have been thinking a lot about (and feeling) anxiety and fear lately.  I find that it is terribly easy to get caught up in fear and despair, even, at times.  For me right now, it's mainly in regards to my own health, but often it's other things too.  Anxiety is a life-sucking beast and can be so debilitating at times. So one day recently I got really caught up in this fear and decided to paint through it instead of sitting in it.  I remembered that I have read in a devotional earlier to "make the choice to rejoice."  And that's just it- to live in fear is a choice.  To live in joy, with hope, is a choice.  Jesus constantly tell us, "do not fear."  This is not a suggestion, but a command, and ultimately a choice.  To rejoice in our sufferings, to be thankful in all circumstances, to trust God despite what we feel.  The choice to rejoice.  To choose hope instead of fear and despair.  Easier said than done but this is what I have been trying to focus on instead of fear an anxiety- but it is definitely a moment by moment choice! 

I hope it can serve as a reminder for you all, too.

Choose hope.

Healing will follow.

Summer Rain

If there’s one thing that refreshes my soul in the hot summer  months, it’s a good rain.  A lot of people tend to grumble about the  rain, often deeming rainy days as gloomy, depressing, and even  useless because rain can often get in the way of the activities and  plans we have for ourselves that day.  However, what we often  forget, and even take for granted, is that rain, and water itself, is  essential to life.  At our house, we pray and thank God for rainy  days, praising Him for sending the rain that makes the flowers  grow. Like flowers, we also need rain.  Rainy days refresh the earth,  and, if we allow, slow us down, make time for rest, and feed our  souls.  

Allow your soul to be refreshed by the rain today.

the woman in wood

In painting, I have always been intimidated by faces.  I have taken a few drawing and painting classes that involved landscapes and portraits but I could never get the measurements quite right and was always discouraged.  It seemed that "real life" was not in my painting realm, and that was okay with me.  I think more abstractly so it would make sense that my art would follow in suit with that.

However, I have recently become somewhat obsessed with faces in my artwork.  I have begun to explore this new realm and have found such freedom in it.  The proportions may never be exactly right but hey, it's abstract and it's mine..and therefore it doesn't seem to matter so much.

My husband found this old frame in our attic and I have been staring at it for weeks trying to decide what to do with it.  Finally- a few weeks ago- I just sat down to paint it and this is what came of it.  Frankly, I like it a lot.

Sometimes I surprise myself.

Eye See You

I painted this one before Halloween but thought I would (finally) post it.  Obviously I need to be better at updating my blog.  No real explanation to this one...I just had an idea- surprising for me!- and went with it.  It didn't turn out at all how I had envisioned it, but life usually happens that way! 

I am happy with the way it turned out.

"But the eyes are blind, One must look with the heart." 

[-antoine de saint-exupery]

Her

My sister, Annalise, asked me to create a painting for her for her birthday this past November. She said she didn't care much about what it looked like, she just wanted the theme to be around "nature."  It sounds silly, but it made me nervous to have a theme.  For the most part, I never have an idea of what I am going to paint; it just sort of..happens. My thoughts on this blog are not pre-thought but rather an after-thought, a reflection of my experience.  So beginning a painting with an idea, especially under the pressure of someone else's expectations, was intimidating to me.  However, I did it and this is what came of it.

Like many of my paintings, I begin one way and at some point, there is a shift into something that I can't explain in words.

This is the note I wrote to her that went along with the painting:

"I know this was probably not what you were expecting for a nature painting.  Where are the leaves and rainbows and trees?  I have a hard time beginning a painting with an idea, but I did try this time- for you!  I was trying to do some kind of rainy, sunset, ocean thing but it wasn't working and I was getting frustrated.  I stopped to take a breath and look at it before starting completely over, and that's when I saw HER.

It's interesting what happens when art and beauty happens to be there in the midst of your mess.  Often because we are so discouraged and frustrated with what we want it to look like and how we want things to be, that we completely miss it.  Not until we step back, take a breath, and look from a new perspective, can we actually see what's there and what was always meant to be.

I call it "accidental art" and it's my favorite, but it's really no accident at all.  There is purpose in every movement, every happening, every brush stroke.  Even when we can't feel it or see it, it is there.  She is there.

Out of the mess, comes beauty.
Out of chaos, comes peace.
Out of the ashes, comes life.

There is purpose in all of nature and in all of YOU.

So, no, this is not your average painting of a tree.  It is not a nice, well-developed landscape.  And yet, the very essence of nature is emanated through it.

It radiates.
And so do you."

courageous

Lately I have been thinking about the word "courage."  When we think about courage, we think about people that often have placed themselves in situations that require bravery, perseverance, and fighting against the odds. Some that come to mind for me at first thought are Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Helen Keller...the list goes on and on.  These people are famous for their courage. So where does that leave us? What does courage look like for us in our daily, and sometimes obscure, lives?

When I think about those who are famous for their courage and the lengths that they went to in order to accomplish what they did, my life all of a sudden feels very small and my level of courage even smaller.  Lions are often the symbol of courage. I do not think of myself as a lion, but rather something a little more timid, a little more afraid, and a lot less confident.

However, when I look at the definition of "courage" in its core context, I feel somewhat different.

 Merriam-Webster's Dictionary defines courage as "the ability to do something that you know is difficult or dangerous." 

This, I do everyday.

Everyday I wake up, get out of bed, do what needs to get done and some. I work, go to school, take care of my house and my family, and I learn from all of that.  

LIFE is difficult. LIFE is dangerous.

We are all courageous in our core.

We are all lions.

Be courageous and unleash the lion today.

"Courage does not always roar.  Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow.'" 

[-mary anne radmacher]

the fractured woman

I painted this one a few weeks ago but have been slow to update the blog due to the end of the school semester and Christmas rapidly approaching.  I don't have very much to say about this painting except to say that the woman in the painting was an odd and yet very fantastic mistake.  I had no intention of her being there but when I stepped back to look at the finished product, there she was.  

The problem that I have (or had) with this painting is that the paint is cracking on it.  I experimented with a new type of canvas for this one and this is the result I received? In all honesty though, it's an oil canvas (meant to be used with oil paints) so I should have figured that gouache might have some sort of alternate reaction--I dismissed this possibility, however, and continued to use the gouache.  I'm not a huge fan of oil paints anyway-- too expensive and they take forever to dry! 

All this to say, the paint has already cracked in many areas, but the longer I look and take that in, the more I actually prefer it that way.  The woman has a very frail and and yet beautiful persona about her.  I think perhaps that she, in more ways than one, represents the fragility and tenderness that is present in God's craftsmanship of every woman.  Whether we want to admit it or not, we are frail.  We are easily broken and cracked, and yet there is such beauty that shines in the midst of that....for, as in the painting, she is still standing and still lovely as ever. 

I hope this can encourage you (and not only the ladies!) to stand firm when you feel broken and cracked.  

There is still beauty to be found.  

After all, it is the cracks that allow light to shine through.

"Maybe its like you said before, all of us being cracked open.  Like each of us starts out as a watertight vessel.  And then things happen- these people leave us, or don't love us, or don't get us, or we don't get them, and we lose and fail and hurt one another.  And the vessel starts to crack in places.  And I mean, yeah once the vessel cracks open, the end becomes inevitable.  Once it starts to rain inside the Osprey, it will never be remodeled.  But there is all this time between when the cracks start to open up and when we finally fall apart.  And its only that time that we see one another, because we see out of ourselves through our cracks and into others through theirs.  When did we see each other face to face? Not until you saw into my cracks and I saw into yours.  Before that we were just looking at ideas of each other, like looking at your window shade, but never seeing inside.  But once the vessel cracks, the light can get in.  The light can get out."

[-John Green]