words, splats, and drips....

I am having a blast painting in this style.

I have been heading in this direction, playing with a more graffiti, edgy, messy style.

I am so drawn to this style.

I purchased Alisa Burke's book Canvas Remix last year. While my daughter did a few of the canvas bags, I kept looking at the pictures and drooling over them but never really did any of it.

Much later I did my graffiti like heart pictures. Then I began playing with spray paint on the canvas too.

Last month I signed up for Alisa's Graffiti Chic class. As I do in a lot of classes, I did not follow it week by week, but I watched all the videos. I kind of take in all the information and then let it swirl in my brain and mix up with what I already know. Then I will paint something. I will refer back to the videos often to refresh myself with a technique or something that I want to see again. Since I had Alisa's book and had experimented with the graffiti style, all of it was not new to me, but seeing her actually paint helped me pull it all together. Now I need to go back and work on my graffiti lettering. I like how she mixes up her lettering, how she uses lots of free writing. Since I love words on my paintings this was perfect for me.

She offers a Graffiti Chic 2 class, I think I will sign up for that too!!!
If you have not visited her blog you really need to do so. She offers so many tutorials on her blog, and her posts are always so creative, and so fun to see.

Oh, this painting is 24x36. I love painting big! :)

Abiding Monday

Next Sunday is Easter.

For many, this week is full of activity in preparation for it.
Planning the Easter dinner,
shopping for it,
coloring eggs,
and gathering things for Easter baskets.
Maybe even purchasing new Easter clothes.
All of that on top of our usual activities.

Let us not forget to take the time to contemplate what Easter mean for us.

This is from my church's bulletin.
May we use this in the days leading up to the celebration of the most amazing gift!

"Take some time and thank God for this week and all it signifies. Rest in the reality of Christ's finished work on the cross. If you are in Christ, you stand before God innocent. Sit in the truth of the empty tomb and the new, fearless life that God has opened up for you. Respond to the vivid display of God's tremendous love for you and know that you are received in this moment."

MONDAY|Power of His resurrection [Phil 3:7-11]
TUESDAY|Eagerly wait [1 Cor 1:4-9]
WEDNESDAY|Riches of God's grace [Eph 1:3-14]
THURSDAY|Great love of God [Psalm 57:7-11]
FRIDAY|The death of Jesus [John 19:16-42]
SATURDAY|Alive in Christ [Eph 2:1-10]

Blessings to all this Holy Week!

same but different

I painted another journal today.

Yesterdays journal is 6x8, and this one is 8x11.

The front of this journal has the numbers going horizontal. I think it needs a little something under the numbers in that blank spot. What do you think??

There is something about these colors that I am drawn to. I painted a long narrow picture similar to these, but it need a little more before I post it.

Painting covers

I painted my daily journal.

The one that I just write in.

The one that I journal what I am feeling.

The one where I talk things out.

I find so much more pleasure in journaling in a fun funky journal, as opposed to one with a generic cover.

Silly really, but I do.

I am such a visual person, I like my surroundings and things to be fun to look at. I can get carried away with that though. I can be discontent when I don't like how things look, including myself if I am honest (honest even with myself).

These picture are of my current journal. I am pleased with it - but I like the back of it better than the front!!! :)

Hope you all have a good day!!!!

Abiding Monday

I don't like schedules.
I don't like rules, especially arbitrary rules.
I don't like to be told what to do.
I don't like being accountable.

Hmmm, looks to me like I like to be in control.

But the things that I do have control over, like eating, how I use my time and money, I don't always exercise control in.

God and I are addressing issues surrounding my eating. There is a deeper issue at the core of my misuse of food, I know that. Dis-satisfaction with relationships in my life, some unresolved anger, boredom, and more. Eating, just like shopping, TV, the excessive moving of furniture, even my art, can be something I turn to to fill the void, to fill the ache in my heart.

None of these things are bad, it's how I use them.

So God and I are having quite a few conversations about this. About what causes me to use things unwisely. There is always a why behind the things we do. Sometimes we are unaware of the why. I don't want to live with blinders on. I want to be free from the things that control me and keep me from living in the freedom God offers.

A good friend (thank you Susan) recommended a book to me.
"surrendering hunger" 365 devotions for wholeness, by Jan Johnson

It is helping me to see a little clearer.

Why do I post about these issues??

I do not believe I am alone in my struggle of trying to satisfy my desires, of filling the emptiness I sometimes feel with things that do not satisfy. That in reality actually bind me, and have the potential of leading me to addictions that take away my freedom.

Our society tries so hard to look good. To keep hidden the issues that we deal with in private. To paste on a smile even when we are hurting. To say all is fine. No problems or issues here. Especially, the family of God.

But when we hide behind that fake smile, we do a disservice to each other. If we are all pretending everything is fine how will we ever help each other - without judgment and in love?? If we are hiding our struggles, we compound them with feelings of failure and guilt. We are all flawed, we all struggle, we all hurt.

Let's stop pretending and pursue the freedom God offers.

Blessings!

Spring is here!

Forsythia and Japanese Quince, two of my favorite spring flowering bushes.
Both grow in our yard. I love to cut the branches just before they bloom and bring them inside and watch them blossom a little more each day!!

Wishing you all a wonderful first day of Spring!!

Who chair is it anyway?? - the one with the broom!

Here is the rightful owner of that little red chair!

He loves brooms!!

He comes into our home and says, "broom, broom, broom"

hmmm, maybe he is protecting his little red chair!!

Feeling a little green.......

Feeling a little green today

but don't ya know

I'm not a one color kind of girl!!

Okay, the orange daffodil photo was meant to be last. Oh well, I am not going to re-load them so it is what it is. lol

You get the idea!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day you all!!

Abiding Monday

I know I have mentioned this book before - it's really, really good!!

TrueFaced.

In speaking of our true identity in Christ John Lynch says this,

"Nature provides many examples of this incredible discrepancy between who we appear to be and who we truly are. Consider the caterpillar. If we brought a caterpillar to a biologist and asked him to analyze it and describe its DNA, he would tell us, "I know this looks like a caterpillar to you, but scientifically, according to every test, including DNA, this is fully and completely a butterfly." Wow! God has wired into a creature that looks nothing like a butterfly, a perfectly complete butterfly "Identity." And because the caterpillar is a butterfly in essence, it will one day display the behavior and attributes of a butterfly. The caterpillar matures into what is already true about it....So it is with us. God has given us the DNA of godliness. We are saints. Righteous. Nothing we do will make us more righteous than we already are. Nothing we do will alter this reality. God knows our DNA, He knows that we are "Christ in me." And now he is asking us to join him in what he knows is true!"


I am becoming what is already true of me. Please hear me, I am becoming, I am far, far from there, but becoming. God is changing my heart, my motives, my actions. Usually in that order. Does that mean that I should not do what I know God asks of me or I know to be true if I don't "feel" it?? No, there is a place for obedience, and many times we don't always "feel" like doing the right thing. But I want more than obeying for the sake of obeying. I know God is changing my desires into his desires.

Changing me into what I already am.

Changing me as I abide in him, allowing him to do the work in my heart.

Blessings!

Friday dinner fun

My oldest son Brian called and asked if he and his girlfriend Abby could come over and make dinner. A fiesta dinner. Well what do you think my answer was?????
It was so much fun watching my kids make dinner.
I was so excited about sitting down and eating a meal I did not prepare I forgot to take pictures of the food on the fiestaware!!!
It was yummy!!!
I'm thinking we should start a new tradition.
Friday Fiesta night!!!
With them cooking!!

One more spread in my large journal

This spread began with turquoise, red, black and white.
The process, the journey, the adventure!
I wonder what colors I'll end up being??

Large Journal

Here are a few spreads from my large 11x16 journal. I have shied away from working in it. I think I am finding that it takes me awhile to get up the gumption to try new things. I don't know if it that I am afraid I will fail. I can remember as a child and young adult, and maybe not so young, I would begin a project and never complete it. Was is boredom or something else??? I think there was a fear of not doing a good job. This adventure of art and painting has help in that. I am loosing my "wrong" notion that I or what I do has to be perfect. Boy, is that freeing or what!!

I see this trait in my sweet daughter. Amazing how something one does not set out to do intentionally gets passed down to the next generation. My sons even have traits from my Dad, and they did not spend much time with him growing up.

I like these pages. I don't think they are quite finished yet, especially the one with the girls on it. My daughter saw that one and said, "You did a girl with a dress?!!" I don't do dresses!!!!!! I am a pant kind of girl don't ya know!!!

And yes, I will finish them if I feel they need to be!!

Blessings!

Abiding Monday

I was reading "The Pursuit of God, by A.W. Tozer" this morning. "....things. They were made for man's use, but they were meant always to be external to the man and subservient to him. In the deep heart of the man was a shrine where none but God was worthy to come. Within him was God; without, a thousand gifts which God has showered upon him. But sin has introduced complications and has made those very gifts of God a potential source of ruin to the soul."

How can "things" have such an impact on our lives??

This seems to be an overriding theme God keeps bringing back to me.

Who or what reigns in my heart?

Looking back on the previous years journal sometimes helps me to see with a little more clarity. I pulled these from several different entries over the course of many months.

"The core of the false self is the belief that my value depends on what I have, what I can do and what others think of me. ~Basil Pennington

Thomas Merton describes this as "winding experiences around myself....like bandages in order to make myself perceptible to myself and to the world, as if I were an invisible body that could only become visible when something visible covered it's surface."

Because it is hollow at the core, the life of a false self is a life of excessive attachments. Seeking to avoid implosion and non-being the false self grasps for anything that appears to have substance and then clings to these things with the tenacity of a drowning man clutching a life ring.

possessions
accomplishments
dreams
memories
friendships

These can be either a blessing or a curse. Blessings when they are held with open hands or gratitude, a curse when they are grasped in clenched fists of entitlement and viewed as "me" or "mine." (as Tozer said, "those gifts have the potential to ruin the soul")

We feel good when we surround ourselves by what we think are innocent indulgences and think they secure a state of pleasure that would not be ours without them. In reality, however, they sabotage our happiness and are hazardous to both our spiritual health and our psychological health.

Spiritual attachments serve as idols.

They are ways of coping with the feelings of vulnerability, shame, inadequacy that lie at the core of our false way of being.

When I try to fill my emptiness there's not much vacuum for The Spirit to fill.
(David Benner)

Feel the emptiness - don't fill it with things, moving furniture, eating, shopping.

God uses disappointments to draw us to himself - to wean our hearts from every other perceived source of life (I need this to be happy) so that we might come to find our life in Him. (Walking with God - John Eldredge)

1 Peter 4:1-2 (msg) Since Jesus went through everything you're going through and more, learn to think like him. Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way. (ouch) Then you'll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want.

Still too much of me
not enough of you Lord
too many spending sprees
on things I really don't need
never on anything really big
more like a faucet with a leak
a little here a little there
and soon there is a lake.

I am getting better and not using things to fill the void. But I still use them at times. I am seeing I use food too.

I am going to stop here today, I have more thoughts, but I will save them for another time.

Blessings!

Who's chair is it anyway??

Not much going on in the art room at the moment, and I seem to be stuck in other areas right now as well.

So it is with life at times.

I snapped these pictures the other day. The little chair is meant to be for my precious Grandson. Hopefully I'll get a picture of him in it soon!! But two of my cats love it. Funny, the third one has not given it a try.

The big gray cat is Flirt, and you all know Jack the cat!!

Though it snowed for most of the day, it did not last for long. It is supposed to reach 60 this weekend. As much as I like cooler weather I am looking forward to a little warmth.

Blessings!

Looks what's it's doing right now!

It's March 2nd.
It is snowing in Georgia.
I remember in 1994 I think it was, we had one of the biggest snow storms ever here. Well, at least the biggest I have experienced in Georgia!

Abiding Monday

"But we love her, quirks and all."

This is from a few posts ago (Around the Studio) about my mischievous Jack the cat.

God has been moving in my heart. In my heart I hear, "Can you love and accept the people in your life with all their many quirks, as easily as you love and accept this cat?"

OUCH!

Oh Lord, do I have an easier time extending grace to a cat than I do others????

Yes, you do my child.

So here I sit for a bit, searching my heart, bringing it to Abba.