To Finish a Painting

To finish a painting is the hardest part.

I am good at getting an idea.

I am good at sketching out the shapes and getting a great feel onto the paper.

Then I work on adjusting the colors & detail.

I am trying to finish "Boats Docked in Maine".

I am noticing a pattern.

It needs SOMETHING, but can't figure out what.

I like it and I don't want to ruin it.  Artists, you know this sentiment!

I am at what I call the pushmepullyou stage, (word borrowed from Rudyard Kipling).  I am adding color, taking away darks, emphasizing shadows, erasing mistakes.  OK, sometimes I'm fudging.

Here's what I am seeing:  The right side of the painting is compelling.  It works.  And I am trying to make the left side work in the same way, but there are no interesting shapes or colors in the photo to make that happen, so I am trying to invent them.  It is not working.  My strongest inclination is to crop the left side somewhere close to the mast.  I can see that if I keep fudging, it is not going to work, and if I keep trying I will work the left side to death.  Now why would I want to kill a nice work like this?

Time to crop, sign and start a new painting.

By the Oaks of Mamre

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

From Calm my Anxious Heart homework, chapter on FAITH. 

Each week we write:  What did I learn about God this week?

He sometimes uses spooky seeming things to make His point with us).  He sent 3 men to Abraham and he recognized them as messengers from God even though they are not called angels. He treated them as such.  Weird, it comes across to me.  Now that I have had my own weird experience, I should not see this as spooky, but I do.

It comes across as a oneironaut, a waking dream.  It was in the heat of the day--no breeze, all still save the cicadas in the trees around the oasis, resting in the door of his tent, shade and breeze best there.   Wavy images over the sand.  Is this a heat dream, as compared to heat lightening?

Looking at the context:  Abraham, and all his men, had they been circumcised.  It comes immediately after in the text, though that is not proof that it happened right then. That just means, this is the next story that is written down.  But I am curious.  

Are they reeling from pain?  Were they on Canaan aspirin to numb the pain?  drunk?  That could produce some weird dreams. 

They had obeyed God.  Every male was  circumcised.  Then God visited them with the specific promise about SARAH, not Hagar, that their son would become a multitudinous nation.  After some time they tried to fulfill that promise by surrogate mother Hagar.  Then God said circumcise and they obeyed and then God clarified His intent:  Sarah is to be the mom.  

God still used Sarah even though she laughed in disbelief when she first heard of His plan and then LIED: "I didn’t laugh"....not looking too Godly at that point.  But by the next year she gave birth in old age.  She had grown in faith.  I'm thinking Sarah is blown away by God’s faithfulness.

God has a sense of humor, yes, but he reprimanded Sarah for her lack of belief, her lack of taking God’s word from His messengers seriously.   Can you blame her? Yet God blamed her. But He did not punish her, nor did He change His plan. 

Companion question: What did you learn about yourself this week?

As with Sarah, God is with me, come as you are, imperfect, as is, scratch and dent.  I used to pray "I believe, help Thou mine unbelief."  I did not believe whole heartedly.  And He helped my unbelief.  He took my mustard seed faith and made it grow.  It is growing into a big ole tree that birds can build nests in.  Lord, may my little birdies nest in my tree, which is rooted in You.  And I thank You for this.   You made me, You redeemed me, You gave me my family, You graduated Rick to heaven and You  became my husband. You sent men to help me do things men do best.  You made my son Andrew to step up, You made him faithful like his dad.  You blessed me with grand babies.  You coached me;  you sent me Ron Marsh (Christian life coach:  purposefilledlife.com.) You gave me a life purpose.  Hallelluiah.  You gave me my ability to see beauty and the eye-hand coordination to but my interpretation of that beauty on paper.  You did this. 

And how does it make sense that I still worry about money?  (This is the inheritance that my physical father gave me: you need to have plenty of money--- though at age 97 it is about family.)

Given all that has transpired

Question from study of Joseph:  Given all that has transpired in Joseph's life, what do you learn about the process of reconciling broken relationships?

 thoughts.....

1. If God is at work, "something beautiful, something good, all my confusion, He understood.  All I had to offer him was brokenness and strife, but HE made something beautiful of my life."  (Bill Gaither song, one of my theme songs.)  In Joseph's case, he didn't screw up his own life, his brothers did.   (Although the author of the study suggested Joseph might have been a spoiled tattle tale making him partly culpable for what happened?   I don't assume Joseph was perfect; neither am I convinced  he was a brat.)  In my case, I blamed myself for my broken relationship, although it does take two to tango, and two to reconcile.  No, wait, I went back and forth between blaming me and blaming the other party.  I could really write a saga here.

Back to Joseph study...

2.  If God's plan is reconciliation for my family, friend or mate,  it will happen and it will happen when HE wants it to.  Year by year, Joseph must have had a growing question in his mind as to whether his dad was still alive.    And how is Benjamin?  Is he married?  Does he have children?  Has he become Dad's favorite as I used to be?  Do the brothers hate him? Will they do him wrong, too?  Is he safe?

3.  It's not over till it's over.

4.  The bond of family is almost? perhaps? surely? unbreakable.

5.  If there is any rift in a family, one will always yearn for it to be made right.  One will always feel it no matter what, even if one is comforted with new family, one will always long for the original one.  I would love for my new friend, also named Joseph, to talk about this one.

6.  Part of the reconciling process is that the TRUTH HAS TO BE TOLD OUT LOUD with REAL WORDS THAT THE other party understands, such as, "I am Joseph."

  

6a.  Another part of reconciling is a plan of action to make things better.

7.  Both sides need to be ready to reconcile.  So far, it is all Joseph's open arms and offer to reconcile.  The brothers have realized the truth with a mixture of joy and fear, but they have yet to prove they have repented.

8.   God humbled Joseph's brothers and brought them to a place where they began to realize God was bigger than they were and they  regretted their sin....."this is what we get for selling Joseph into slavery.  Remember how he begged us not to?"  

9.  Wow.  What a cool story.  Thank You for writing it down, Lord.  I can't wait to study the end, even though I know what happens.

The Un-Dog

I pined for my dog who is now in doggie heaven, if there were such a place, in which she would be either not biting people, or biting them and having it make them laugh with glee, since heaven is a place where God fixes things up, right?  No, I don't believe either of those things.

So I searched and tried out a new dog, and yet it is not time to commit, due to more important decisions that need to be made first.

Excuse me, Feelings, I have a surprise for you:  being dogless is on the same page as being productive.  Feelings said:  if I had a dog again, it would ease my discomfort and unhappiness and that that would motivate me to do more and better work.  When the yipping and whining subsides, the Truth quietly reveals that doing the work reduces the felt need for that warm, waggy-tailed loyal buddy. 

 

So the work (painting/marketing) comes first, and satisfaction is there.  A new dog will be icing on the cake.

I still look at Petfinder.  I peek into animal shelters if I'm not too rushed.  But it is not time.  

It is time to paint.