In Awe of You

There is a new album out by Jesus Culture, a Christian worship group, called Unstoppable Love. One of my favorite songs from that album is the song, In Awe of You. It really speaks to those moments in our lives when we just have no words for a situation, we can only stand in awe of what God is doing in our lives. Recently this has been the case for me. God is so awesome, working always for our good. He overwhelms me with His kindness.

Penetrating the Darkness

This painting was done the day after the Malaysian plane was shot down over the Ukraine. I know from experience that even in the darkest of dark days God's love is able to penetrate our hearts and make good things out of bad circumstances. Maybe He takes you out of your circumstances, maybe He makes you stronger, maybe the circumstances send you running into His arms. Romans 8:35-39  May His peace fill your hearts today.

Uncap the Love

I know that's kind of a weird title, but I was praying for a friend who is trying to write a book. My husband had gotten a word for her about "uncapping God's love" that's inside her and getting that down on paper. I used up just about all of my red water soluble crayon pushing hard to get all that love out! Sometimes when we feel blocked or stalled creatively we need to ask God why and just press through til things begin to flow.

Breakthrough

The Seed

Arise

I had a sense of Christ coming out of the tomb - a sense of resurrection and restoration.  May we walk in that resurrection power of His love and grace today.

The Father's Heart

This painting was done to express the great love God has for his children. I think many people have not experienced the love of God and so they think they don't need Him, or they think wrongly about who He is. I have experienced God's love in so many ways - great and small. I know He loves me and I know He loves you. Take some time today to tell God you love Him. If you don't know for sure if He loves you - ask Him.

Dancing Before the Lord

This painting came as I was praying for my daughter. She is a wonderful dancer and very musical. The figure just seemed to happen in the center as I was thinking about her. Different colors are beginning to represent things to me. Red is God's love and Jesus's blood shed on the cross for our sins. Light blue represent the Holy Spirit. Yellow and gold represent the glory of God. I was listening to a new album - You Make me Brave from Bethel Music.

Realms

I felt the Holy Spirit wanted me to turn my paper so it would be in the portrait position to give me room to move. This one just sort of popped out in a short 15 minutes. The initial movement formed the structure of object that seems to go up and up. Lots of energy and color in this one.

Going Home 36" x 48" watercolor crayons on paper

This one was full of energy and lots of swirls and organic shapes. Then all the vertical lines seemed like people walking into the light of Heaven. You can see that I am still using 4 pieces of paper taped together to make one large surface. When trying a new process I always look for the cheapest way to do something before buying any new supplies, making sure I will stick with the process. So after this painting I ordered drawing paper (100 lb weight) that comes in rolls of 36" x 10 yards. I now cut my paper to size. I also found a water soluble crayon that can be ordered by individual colors instead of just buying a whole set.
                                                   What do you see?

Fire of God

This is painting # 4 - "Fire of God"

New Paintings

 I have been spending some time painting, during my prayer time, while listening to worship music. At first it was difficult to start, because I didn't know what would happen. This is the first "painting". I used crayons and this took about an hour to feel like I was finished. I used 4 large sheets of drawing paper taped together so this is about 36" x 48". I call this one Awakening. It really felt like God was awakening me to a new level of worship with the Holy Spirit helping me.

 This is the second one. It was finished in just  a few minutes - may ten or fifteen minutes. I call this The Holy Spirit Hovering.

 This one really surprised me. The building shapes came first, done with a purple water-soluble crayon. Then everything else surrounding the "city" happened. I switched to water soluble crayons which give a more painterly feel. I draw with the crayons first and then use a brush with water. This is A City on a Hill. Revelations 21

Hearts and Leaves

I tried a new technique today for printing without a press on my Gelli plate plate using stencils from Stencil Girl. I signed up for their emails and today they featured Penny Phillips from Journal Artista. I really love how they came out. If you are interested in the technique let me know.

Key to the Kingdom Journal

 I have finished my visual journal based on a class taken from Valerie Sjodin . I real ly appreciate her work and the lessons have taken me in a new direction. So here is the journal front to back.

                                 Front cover - Keys - acrylic paint 8"x 10"

 Front cover with first flap open so you can read the entire title: Keys to the Kingdom.

 First Key - I need to trust my shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ, to lead and guide me, even in my art making. I need to always listen for His voice and follow only Him.

 Second Key: The secret place is a place where I can be alone and talk to God. I can not live without His presence in my life. The time I spend in prayer, worship and just silence sitting before Him keeps me going.

 Here is the Secret place with the flap open so you can read the verse. God always shows me things, just when I need encouragement or guidance. they are usually small beautiful things like butterflies - or the pansy I found under the snow a few days ago.

 Third Key: Soar Above. I think of this as trying to have the mind of Christ. Listening to the Holy Spirit's leading. Walking and talking like Jesus. Scripture says that Christ only did and said what he heard and saw His Father doing. This same anointing is available to all  Christians.

 Fourth Key: Most of my time spent with God is in  praise, adoration and worship. Scripture says to put on the garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness and that the joy of the Lord is our strength. This has been very true for me.

 Fifth Key: Inviting Jesus to be your friend, your companion and setting aside time to spend just being with Him. We are like a garden enclosed with skin and He wants to dwell with us like he did with Adam and Eve in the garden.

the back cover.

Mr Gus

9 x 12 watercolor paper oil pastel

This is an oil pastel I did of our dog, Mr. Gus. He is a ten year old pug and is my buddy in the studio. I have joined the group " The Documented Life Project." You can take a look via my Facebook page. Each week there is a challenge. It's based on a planner but I am doing mine in a mixed media sketchbook I already had. It's been a fun challenge. One of the challenges was to find an artist on Pinterest that inspires you and do a page in you journal in that style. I found these cool animal paintings by Ruth Tatter

                                                      Ruth Tatter

My garden

These pages are based on a song by Misty Edwards. I don't know the name of it, and I don't think it's been released yet, but she sang it at the  One Thing 2013 conference at the end of 2013. The conference is free and there were 29,000 young people there this year. Her song talks about how our heart is a garden and how we can fellowship with God. As soon as I heard it I got this image in my head of flowers and a beautiful space

Completed layout with scripture.

The Secret Place

I have been progressing on my journal and have a few new pictures. This is the section I call the Secret Place. The page on the left covers the next two pages so part of it is hidden. I will add the words The Secret Place here and probably paint the background red. I want it to be a different "door" than the blue door. but I have to do the other sections that will show with this page and make  sure the colors work together.

This is the page I did to represent the secret things God does for me that no one knows about. Things that are just between me and Him. This butterfly was done in colored pencil and the background is acrylic paint and colored pencil. 

Keys Journal front cover

Here is the front of my journal. It has 17 pages if you count all the flaps and pages back and front. You'll see as I go along. This first photo is how it looks when it's closed. I still have pen work and more words I want to add, but I wanted to post this to give you an idea of how it's beginning to look.

This photo shows the first flap open and the rest of the left page is completely revealed. It's kind of like a treasure box as it unfolds.  I am skipping around doing pages I have solid ideas and sketches for first. 

Keys

Here is the first two pages inked and ready for color. It took a few hours to plan out all the pages around my theme. I had to make sure each touching page related to the other back and front. Conceptually this is a real challenge for me. Now that I'm past the planning stage and have completed these pages, the rest are starting to flow.

Journal

Starting a new project - a visual journal. I found a great blog which inspired me to try and make a prayer journal. Valerie Sjodin is an artist that uses visual (or art) journals to express herself. She also paints. So this is the beginning. It's made from 3 sheets of watercolor paper each cut 22" x 10" and folded to make the journal. I'll post more as I go along.

In case you aren't familiar with visual journals, or art journals, just Google it and you'll see many awesome examples. I love the idea of combining words and images in a book format. I am excited to add to that a theme for the whole journal. Let me know what you think of art journals, and if you have a favorite artist doing journals, share that too.

I have finished all the 6" x 6" monoprints need ed to fill my sketchbook. I am happy with them all except now my book won't close. But it's a learning curve. I'll have to solve that issue next time around. These are three prints I did using my brand new stencils from Stencil Girl.  Mary Beth Shaw has collaborated with many artists to design really wonderful, interesting stencils for artists and crafters to use.

Three Birds on Stilts

Landscape

                                                         
                                                         Heart

Gold squares and a blue sky

Gold squares over navy scallops- 6 x6" monoprint.

                                Blus Sky - Vermont vista 6 x 6 oil on canvas.

Layers

This one has three layers and each one surprised me. finished enough prints today to dil the sketchbook. A bunch of really nice stencils arrived today from Stencil Girl. Can't wait to try them out.

More mono prints today. I am almost finished filling the small 7 x7 sketchbook. It really looks neat with all the prints together in one book. My larger "real"  8" x 10"  Gelli Plate arrived a few days ago and I am ready to put that to work. I wanted to work small first, because I could work faster and figure out some of the problems (challenges) I was having with resolution, color mixing and just getting an image I was looking for.
The 6" x 6" size work great for that.

 I find that if I set a goal for myself with certain parameters, I tend to stick it out, and progress, at least a little. If you need a break from the intenseness that can come from painting, try mono- printing. You just can't worry to much about perfection. Surprise is the name of the game. You really can't make corrections - just do overs. And that alone teaches you lot of things. Like patience, technique, and not too take your work too seriously. You can make an image in just minutes - which I really LIKE! Fun, fun, fun! All you need is a gelatin plate, a ink roller, acrylic paint and paper. Stencils are optional because you can draw on the play and use objects as stencil.

Here is one done with two prints. First the background was a ghost print - which is the second print made from the original plate. With the gelli plate these all come out very soft and watery looking. The second color was from the first print, using a 6 x6" flower stencil from   The Crafter's Worskhop. You can see from the purple edges that my home made gelatin plate is shrinking and getting pretty wonky around the edges. This won't happen with the store bought plate from Gelli Arts.

This is a photo of two prints pasted into the sketchbook. I really like the way the purple (Dioxazine Purple) looks over the olive green color.

Water Lily , Swirls and Dots

Here are two more mono prints. What I am finding so interesting, is trying to take a print and then print another image over it, to create something else. This was the first print I did. It was a happy surprise the way the shape (square on point) of the lily stencil created a window, or peep hole effect, over the first layer (green leaf).

This one is actually three separate prints. First the swirl using dark blue. Then the red dots and then the yellow. The transparency of the acrylic paint creates all sorts of surprises for me because I am much more used to working in oils.

I've been working on a new series of mono prints using my homemade gelatin plate. The original size of the plate was about 9" x 12". Since then I have had to cut it down twice because of large tears that happened. I have a small sketchbook I am going to fill with 

6" x 6" prints. Stillman & Birn Delta Series in the 7 x7 size,  is the perfect place to keep all these prints. I have another of their sketchbooks and they really are awesome. Markers, paint , whatever don't bleed through the pages and they are great for mixed media.

Blackbird - 6 x 6 monoprint - acrylic

Forest Fire - 6 x 6 mono print - acrylic

More prints

We had a big snowstorm here, which started yesterday, and is just winding down this evening. But no worries here! We've got power, plenty to eat and lots of art making to do! I am experimenting today with the gelatin plate I made a few days ago using acrylic paint in stead of water soluble printers ink.

What a difference in what you can do. Layer after layer until you like it. Here are three that I was especially happy with.

                                        My husband named this Blueberries.

 Here I used a falcon stencil I made from a photograph I cut out and covered in clear contact  paper.

Stripes.