Seeds

"Seed #1"
9X12"
Pen & ink

What kind of seed is this? It could be anything--a seed of hope, of faith, of love. Or, it could be a seed of bitterness, envy, or greed. The possibilities are endless, and it's not always clear what the seed is until it is planted and begins to grow.

My garden this year was full of surprises. I couldn't remember what my husband had planted in the buckets strewn around our front patio area. I patiently watered the soil and waited for something to sprout. After a few months, I was finally able to make some determinations about which plants were weeds and which were plants that I wanted to keep and nurture.

It was a very good life lesson. Of all the things that get planted in my heart, some are worth keeping and nurturing, and some need to be pulled out by the roots. It's not always easy to tell which is which, and that's where I have to rely on the Holy Spirit. He shows me which plants in my heart are the plants of hope and faith and love and which ones are the weeds of bitterness and selfishness and greed. The Master Gardener is always at work uprooting the weeds in my heart and nurturing the flowers and fruits.

"Seed #2"
9X12"
Pen & ink

New Life, New "Peace" of Art

"Swallowed Up in Life"
9X12"
Pen & ink

It's been awhile since I've posted anything new. That's not because I haven't been creating anything--I've just been going through some major changes in the last couple of months. After spending some serious time in prayer to find out what God wanted me to do now that I'm on my own again, I felt that I needed to leave my job and dive into full-time missionary work.

Does it sound crazy? Perhaps, but it's not the first time I've made such a move. The first time I quit a job and pursued missionary work, I worked with a ministry to youth and homeless veterans while I was also attending art school. Not only did this give me the skills I needed to create all the wonderful art on this site, it also gave me the opportunity to take the trip on which I met my husband. It's been an adventure that I would not trade for anything, despite the hardships that I experienced.

This time around, I'm not really sure what God is leading me to do. I am helping out a couple of ministries and praying for God's direction. During one of my prayer times, I felt a strong desire to be totally swallowed up in God--all my past accomplishments and failures, all my hopes and dreams, all that I love and despise, everything. I wanted to shed my checkered past and walk into a completely new life. That's where this painting comes from. It represents the prayer of my heart during this new season of my life. Against all human logic and reasoning, I have a tremendous sense of peace about my new path...even if I can't see where it will take me right now.

Tears in a Bottle

"Psalm 56:8 (Put My Tears in Your Bottle)"
9X12"
Pen and ink

I have found great comfort in this verse as it is written in the New King James version:

"You number my wanderings;
Put my tears into Your bottle;
Are they not in Your book?"

If you're tempted to think that God does not care about your grief, think again. Jesus came down to earth and got to experience the human life in all its misery. He knows what we're dealing with, and he knows about our grief. In fact, prophecies about Jesus call him "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53:3). It's comforting to know that in our darkest, most painful times, we are not alone in what we are experiencing. Someone notices...and that same Someone cares.

Broken

"Broken"
5 1/4X8 1/4"
Pen and ink

I haven't posted for a long time, because I had a very tragic event happen. My husband died. In fact, he died very suddenly and unexpectedly the day after I drew this picture. I had no idea of what was coming at the moment I was drawing. I was simply messing around with an earlier idea I had for a painting.

Now this picture has come to symbolize how I'm feeling. I am trying to hold myself together, but I am in pieces. Nothing feels right. I could fall apart at any moment...and I frequently do. The nights are the hardest. We were married for three years and ten months, but in that whole time, we were never apart except for work and times when he went to run errands by himself. There is a part of me missing that I cannot retrieve. I am in pain, but there is no medication to ease it or make it go away. The world goes on as if nothing has happened, and I am shattered.

Back to Work--Part 1

"Lady in Waiting"
6.5X9"
Pen, ink, and watercolor

Now that my little noveling adventure is over, it's time to get back to work. I have a couple of projects that I put on pause while I wrote. This lovely little thing was one of them.

After testing several colors with this line drawing (see earlier "Ladies in Waiting" post), I decided to do something slightly different. I still wanted to paint the dress red, even though the dress that inspired this whole thing was black. But instead of sticking with a single color for the whole picture, I decided to work in some greens. I liked the effect much better than any of the colors I had used previously.

What I love most of all about this painting, though, is the happy little accident that occurred with the tree. When I started painting the leaves, I initially let some of the strokes go over the branches. I didn't like how that turned out once the paint dried, and I was afraid that I'd ruined the whole thing. However, I decided to go back over the trunk with another color. As I started to brush water over the branches in preparation for the new color, I noticed that the leaf strokes started to disappear and merge with the trunk color. Hah! There was no need to even mix up the new color. I already had the effect I wanted. So hurray for happy accidents!

Turkey Time

Turkey
8.5X8.5"
Marker and colored pencil

Yep, it's that time of year again. Cooler temps, leaves falling, Christmas advertising, and my favorite thing of all...turkey time!

I haven't been doing too much artwork in the last couple of weeks. My focus for this month is actually novel writing. Yeah, you read that right. I am writing a novel. It's National Novel Writing Month, and I've decided to participate in this crazy fall ritual. Rather than explain it in detail here, I'll send you to their website for more information (http://www.nanowrimo.org/). Click on the "About" tab to learn what it's all about.

Okay, so if I'm writing a novel this month, where did this turkey illustration come from? Well, as much as I'd like to take a month off from work to write, it's just not possible. I still have to do my job. As part of my job, I was recruited to do a bulletin board display on food safety. I needed a really cool color graphic to put with my display, so I decided to draw (and color) my own turkey. He looks so friendly and beautiful that I may just have to go vegetarian this Thanksgiving. Who could eat such a delightful-looking bird? Besides, my husband and I need to finish off last year's Thanksgiving leftovers that we froze before we attempt to cook another bird.

So, while I'm on a holiday and novel writing hiatus, I hope you enjoy the turkey...both the one pictured here and the one that you will probalby be eating in a couple of weeks. Happy Thanksgiving!

Ladies in Waiting

"Lady in Waiting"--four drafts
8X10"
Pen, ink, and watercolor

My husband and I went out to a little shopping area near our town recently. It is a beautiful place that is full of inspiration for paintings and drawings. We didn't realize, however, that a huge festival taking place there during the very weekend we decided to go.

The place was packed, and there were so many people milling about that I couldn't even find a spot to sit and sketch. As we were walking around, though, a woman sitting on a bench caught my eye. She had a parasol and the way she was seated created an interesting shape in my mind. So when I got home, I drew a pen-and-ink sketch of what I could remember. Then I added a tree and added some decoration to her parasol. I wanted to add some watercolor, but I wasn't sure which colors to use.

Thank goodness for the marvels of modern technology. I made some copies of the sketch onto recycled paper, so I could experiment with some color combinations before I made the final painting. Above are the four ideas I came up with--it was so much fun! #1 was actually the last one I painted, but I think it comes from another painting idea of mine. #3 was interesting and left me with a lot of green paint, so I splashed the extra paint onto #2. I was going to come back and add more to #2, but I liked the minimalist effect of the color. #4 came from just trying something different. I have my favorites, and I think I know what I'm going to do now. But it might be interesting to see if anyone else has an opinion first.

Alligators, Crocodiles, Caimans

"Charlie"
8X10"
Watercolor

This is the time that I wish Steve Irwin, the crazy crocodile hunter guy, was still around. I know that I've heard explanations before on the difference between alligators, crocodiles, and caimans, but I can't remember a darn thing. I can tell you that I got the idea for this painting after I watched an interesting program on a particular species of cayman. The question of whether what I painted accurately depicts a caiman or not will have to be debated by reptilian experts. I just happened to like the scene of an alligator/crocodile/caiman floating along in the water with his eyes and snout just peeking out above the surface.

I decided to title the painting "Charlie" after a story that my husband told me. He had mentioned hearing about some kids that were swimming in some kind of pond or waterway in Florida. An adult saw that there was an alligator in the water and started yelling at the kids to get out. The kids seemed unconcerned with the giant reptile. Their casual response to the frantic adult? "Oh, that's Charlie. He's here all the time."

This Charlie has been with me for a few weeks now. I've been painting him slowly and carefully, letting the paint dry between the various layers. I'm usually not so patient in my painting, but Charlie helped me to see the benefits in it. Below, you can see Charlie in his early stage as a pen-and-ink sketch:

Scowling Owls

"Unamused"
8X10"
Pen, ink, & colored pencil

A colleague sent me some pictures of an owl awhile back, hoping to inspire me to paint it. The owl had built a nest in a drainage area near her husband's place of work. It was seen and photographed regularly, and I believe that it was even being fed tamales, which it apparently liked.

One of the pictures did inspire me, mainly because of the expression on the owl's face. For some reason, owls always appear to be scowling. Is it because they're nocturnal and don't appreciate being disturbed by us daytime creatures? Maybe this one is upset because she's not getting enough tamales. I don't know. I just decided to do a quick pen & ink sketch of this one to capture the expression. Make of it what you will.

Prayer for the Dying

8X10"
Pen and ink

It started with the butterfly...

I was just having fun with pen and ink. The butterfly turned out so nicely that I decided to give it a background. And then the unthinkable happened--a disturbed young man went on a shooting rampage in Virginia. I wasn't planning on doing any painting or drawing to comment on the event, but when I tried to decide on a background for my butterfly, the cemetery kept coming to mind. It just seemed so appropriate. We all know that life will go on after such a terrible tragedy, and nature seems best suited to remind us of that fact. In the ugliness of death, if we take a moment to be still, we may just see something emerge that is beautiful and life-affirming.

Card Games (continued)

"Card Games"
6X9"
Watercolor and ink

I just couldn't leave "Card Games" alone. Since it made such a nice black-and-white drawing, I had to experiment with color. After all, love and jealousy are very colorful emotions. I'm not sure which of these versions I like better, so I'm hoping that other people out there in cyberspace will contribute their opinions.

Card Games

5 1/2X8 1/2"

Pen and ink

Talk about your unplanned projects...

This image started out as a simple sketch for a painting idea. I started with the outline of the cards. Inspired by the designs on the face cards, I started messing around with the background. Then a happy little accident occurred and took things in a completely different direction. Well, it wasn't really an accident, but it was certainly unplanned.

When I finished drawing the Jack of Diamonds, it looked to me like he was scowling. Now, why would the Jack of Diamonds be scowling, I wondered. It must be because he noticed something going on between the Queen of Clubs and the King of Hearts. In fact, he must be insanely jealous. He's gripping his sword, and I'm wondering if he isn't about to use it on the King of Hearts. Hmm...