Hiking In Grace & Capturing My View

Watercolors And Letters

02.08.16

Back in the autumn I did a lettering project and I really enjoyed it. I combined my love of watercolor with a verse that had really spoken to me.

LetteringPs62_7

I was inspired to do it by an artist I found through Instagram. She has a lot of tutorials that are easy to follow if you need a push.

At Christmas time I was inspired to do another wreath and lettering project.

letteringGloriaExcelDeo

I enjoyed the simplicity of it.

Now, I am excited to be working on another one that was a request. That one won’t be quite so simple but I am up for the challenge.

But you will have wait to learn more about that one. Pray for me that He leads and guides my brush.

Gratitude: A Fresh Re-start

02.04.16

double_rainbow

In my first post of the year I mentioned that I was going to get back to gratitude listing here again. I am starting afresh with a clean slate.

A house to live in
With heat that works
Laughing hard, so much so that my face hurt, with Trisha and Beverly
Bryant fixes lunch, such a huge help
Hoar frost
She has her diploma in hand, “graduating” a semester ahead of time
Pastor T. W. helping to process her diploma faster than usual
Hot water
Face-timing the Messersmiths
PVBC taking on the Messersmiths as their missionaries, such a huge blessing on so many levels
Two full double rainbows in the sky on the same day

double_rainbow_b

Brilliant blue sky contrasted against the dark storm clouds that were rolling through fast

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Driver’s ed… FINALLY.
Trisha pegs me hard in the face, between the eyes, with a hackysak ball…
…and we laugh long and hard about it.
Listening to father explain to growing tall son – the ins and outs of shaving
The grass is still green and it is January
All four kids hanging out in the kitchen, laughing and singing and quoting lines
Mango has blond eyelashes
They invite me over to chat, they know I’ve had an emotionally hard day
Elizabeth tagging me in a post about friendship, that no matter how long good friends are apart, it is as if no time has passed when they do get together again. So incredibly blessed that God preserved this friendship.

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Barb, continues to encourage me to pursue my art
Shelter from the howling wind
Mango lays on the landing waiting for sleepy heads to come down and play

Finding mouse turds on my drawing table leads me to cleaning it off so I can finally use it

When it is only 12 degrees Fahrenheit, the heat pump is keeping the house warm
Jason’s aunt finds my son’s Bible at her church, it has been missing for years, lost at a tent revival apparently
M asks me to design some custom art for her…
…she is ever encouraging me forward
A sits and folds clothes with me, “to help Mom”
He asks for a haircut and we chat, mom and son
B tells me my soup is his favorite
Reading The Chronicles of Narnia aloud to the kids…
…as they are all snuggled up close around me
The puffed out white chest of the red-tailed hawk, observing the traffic from his perch next to the roadway
God provides for her spring semester of college…
… and the downpayment for a new laptop
Spending time with Dawn, each of us working on separate projects…
… the friendship that is at ease and where silence isn’t awkward at all
SNOW!!! (more than two feet worth)
New friends who show up to help dig you out
Bryant was home to enjoy it, being snowed in together providing special family time
Bright blue sky with lots of sunshine
Several offers to drive him to work when the cars were still buried under snow
He is able to make it to work – on time
Good friends who pray
Mango is a very happy snow-dog
Blue jay

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Brilliant red cardinals

Sparrows with “yellow eye shadow”

Brown birds with striped bellies
Dark gray birds that look as if they’ve been dipped in white paint

Snuggling on the love seat with my girls
Kids who enjoy doing art projects at birthday parties
She realizes she said something she shouldn’t have and has the courage to face it and apologize
She listens to my ranting and casts no judgment
They bless me with time to blog uninterrupted

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In the future, it is my hope, to post this listing at the end of each month.

Focusing on 2016

01.21.16

So here we are in the beginnings of a new year.

As I sat and pondered the coming year and the year that has passed, I have a few focus areas for the new year. I am not setting myself up for failure and setting goals I know I will never achieve. I just want to focus and work on a few areas.

There is an old habit I am bringing back this year.

Gratitude Listing.

I used to post my gratitude and gifts on a fairly regular basis and then after hitting 2000 I decided to just do it privately in a journal.

Guess what?

I never did.

So to keep myself in check, I am going back to where I started and posting it right on the old blog.

Another thing I want to focus on this year here is more ART.

Painting, Drawing, Sketching; not just Photography.

My parents gave me an easel for Christmas and I am looking forward to using it, which means acrylic painting is in my future not just watercolors. I got a great deal on a new starter set of Liquitex!

So. More ART.

Decorating our home.

And I am trying really hard to get my house in order. It has been a mess since we moved in …four years ago. I never really decorated. I just unpacked a few boxes and shoved stuff on to shelves but with no thought process and at some point life took over and not all of our boxes got unpacked.

This year, I want to unpack the rest and get rid of what I don’t want and put out what I truly love.

When I lived in the Philippines, my home decor was very coastal beach house and I still want that theme. Though I am not so much the tropical coastal but more of a New England coastal look. So I am hoping to move forward on that. (Maybe I will dig up some old photos of our home in the Philippines and post them.)

Our furniture is the same with a few new additions but the main pieces are still here and for the most part are in good shape. The slip covers on them are not in such great shape. So my project for the new year is to recover my futon and my love seat and ottoman.

I was very excited to find the same fabric I used for the original cover on my futon (from back in 2002) so I am looking forward to sharing my journey through that process.

Lastly, I am looking toward getting healthier.

My weight and fitness has bounced all over the place in the last few years. I want to get that back on track and stable, and not just my physical health but my all around health; spiritually and mentally too. I’m tired of feeling “blah” all the time.

So to sum it all up…

2016 will focus on:

Gratitude Listing

Taking time for Art

Decking out the house

Getting healthy

Reality That Looks Abstract, Painting #3

11.11.15

The third painting I did in that group of three was of the beach in Boracay, Philippines.

We visited Boracay in October of 2008. The trip was a gift to our family.

Boracay is a beautiful tropical island with palm tree lined beach and turquoise water.

Though this painting looks a bit abstract it is exactly as the photo I took to use as a reference. I especially like the texture of the leading edge of the wave.

The simplicity of this painting and the blue of the water is very calming and makes me long to sit on that beach and fall asleep listening to the lapping of the waves while soaking up the sunlight.

Yaquina Head Lighthouse, Painting #2

11.09.15

After I painted Peggys Cove Lighthouse, I decided to work on Yaquina Head Lighthouse next.

Yaquina Head Lighthouse is located on the Oregon coast.

In 2008, my husband and I took a trip down the coast of Oregon and stopped to photograph most of the lighthouses along the coast. We were not able to go inside this majestic beauty but we did spend some time exploring the tide pools that are at the bottom of the cliff in the foreground of this painting.

I painted from a photo that was taken on an overcast morning. Just as we were leaving, a little stripe of blue appeared on the horizon way out over the Pacific. Overcast weather and clouds make photos and paintings more interesting and provide depth of field for the eye to wander.