Ojalá, Selah, Lateda

Recovery for Christmas

Recovery: Acrylic on Wood, 8.5 x 12 inches

A week and a couple days before I left for Christmas vacation a friend asked me if I would do a painting for her to give as a Christmas present. She wanted a painting to celebrate a friend’s recovery from alcohol addiction. When she first described it to me I imagined one of those pictures where Jesus rides shotgun in a big rig. I tried to explain that no matter the subject matter a painting by me would be in my style, and that I wouldn’t be offended if she wanted to look for an artist better suited to what she was imagining. But I was intrigued and started making sketches. I sent her the sketches and she liked them so with just a week to get it done I accepted the commission. I wasn’t sure if I could get it done with so much else to be done for the holidays but I think the pressure actually worked in my favor. I finished writing part of Psalm 18 around the border just minutes before she came to pick it up, and a few hours later the kids and I left town for a week.

We decided to use the verses from The Message translation. It is very powerful…

 ^16-19 But me he caught—reached all the way
from sky to sea; he pulled me out
Of that ocean of hate, that enemy chaos,
the void in which I was drowning.
They hit me when I was down,
but God stuck by me.
He stood me up on a wide-open field;
I stood there saved—surprised to be loved!

^20-24 God made my life complete
when I placed all the pieces before him.
When I got my act together,
he gave me a fresh start.
Now I’m alert to God’s ways;
I don’t take God for granted.
Every day I review the ways he works;
I try not to miss a trick.
I feel put back together,
and I’m watching my step.
God rewrote the text of my life
when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes.

-Psalm 18:16-24 (The Message)

IF: Hatch

I couldn’t decide which of the 2 paintings I finished this weekend to post for this prompt. Even though they are quite different in tone they both feature a “hatched” creature. I worked on them together off the same pallet so if one wasn’t about to be sent off to live in New Mexico I think I would hang them side by side.

Pondering with Peacock is 7 by 10.5 inches.  Flirty Bird is 7 x 12.5 inches. Both are Acrylic on Wood.
Click on them to see them larger.

IF: Entangled

“After a while she got so entangled that all boundaries were lost.”

For Illustration Friday: Entangled
Collage of Pen & Ink Sketches

This piece started as a simple office post-it doodle on a pink square. It can still be seen on it’s corner in the center. Another, purple, post-it was cut in fourths and pasted to the corners and then all the pieces were placed on a larger yellow one. The transition between the different pieces was awkward until various swirls and a hand were drawn and cut out and pasted down crossing over the edges. A little black sharpie to bring up the contrast and it felt worthy of this week’s prompt.

IF: Flying

“The drawback to having an open mind was the way her thoughts kept flying away.”

For Illustration Friday’s Flying
Acrylic on Wood

I worked on this all weekend and I am very happy with the way the colors glow.

IF: Germ

“The washing of hands and the use of a tissue may prevent the spread of germs but a bad attitude is still easily spread. “

Acrylic on Wood
For Illustration Friday: Germs

Back in May the Illustration Friday prompt was Contagious. I used some doodles to make a digital collage but I knew it needed more work. When I came across a box of wood scraps a month or so ago I brought them home with the idea of doing some folk-art inspired paintings. The first one I started was based on the Contagious piece and it seems like “Germs” is the perfect prompt to share it. I had a hard time photographing it because of the varnish, that’s why the image is shown with some “perspective,” the actual piece of wood is a right-angled rectangle.

If: Pattern

“Consistent chaos can be considered a pattern.”

Pattern: For Illustration Friday
Pen & Highlighter on Paper

I talked to an old friend on the phone yesterday evening and though we hadn’t had the chance to talk in quite a while she told me she tried to keep in touch with me here. Whoops. It’s been way too long since I posted anything. I am going to make a concerted effort to bring some order to my own personal chaos and make time to post the pieces I am working on.

IF: Caution

“Though she did not know from whence it came, there seemed to be some sort of protective shield around her. It was as if a disembodied hand would appear to caution those who would do her harm and they would disperse.”

Caution: For Illustration Friday
Sharpies on Paper

Lunch with a Book

The kids started school today. I could not let myself miss out on taking the littlest S to her first day of Kindergarten so I asked for a half day off. Getting them settled into their new classes was uneventful, none of us came close to shedding a tear, and I was at the office by 8:20. Which meant by 12:20 I had worked 4 hours, which is in fact half a day, so I left. The biggest S had to work a double today so I found myself with almost 3 hours all to myself. The last time I had that much time to myself I used it to catch up on sleep, but today I felt pretty rested. I considered coming home to read, write, draw, meditate or perhaps even sunbathe. But I felt more hungry than I did creative and since we spent most of last week in North Carolina our cupboard is decidedly bare. It seemed like I should take myself out to lunch. Our little town really has only half a dozen places to eat that aren’t fast food so it didn’t take me long to run through the food and atmosphere of each in my head and decide that the Chinese place without the buffet was the place I wanted to be.

The restaurant is dark in a soothing kind of way and usually doesn’t have that big of a lunch crowd. Though when I arrived today they had a new big banner advertising a $4.99 lunch special and most of the tables were in use. Along the the far wall they have one long booth with maybe five or six small tables, each with one chair across from them. I was seated at the second one and as I pulled my book out of my purse I looked down to the end of the booth where another woman was sitting by herself eating with a book. She didn’t look up so I re-entered the strange world of Rushdie’s Enchantress of Venice. When I put the book down to order I noticed another woman was being seated to my left, also alone with a book, and before my food had a chance to come a fourth was seated to my right, also with a book. So there we were all lined up along the edge or the restaurant with our lunch specials and our novels. We must have been quite the sight.

My food was good and the story interesting but rather than being comforted by the presence of my fellow solo readers I felt a bit annoyed by them. Perhaps it was because I went in with the idea of treating myself to something out of the ordinary and then realized my experience was actually a very common one.

I would like to continue to write about what this might mean, but my duties as Soccer Mom are calling…

IF: Idle

“To casual observers she appeared idle,
lazy even, but her level of lethargy was directly
related to the intensity of the battle raging within.”

For Illustration Friday: Idle
Acrylic on Canvas

IF: Shaky

“She was so resolutely focused on her course that she did not even sense how shaky the foundation was.” For Illustration Friday: Shaky Pen & Ink This piece is ridiculously tall so I had to make it pretty small to fit here. Click on it for a larger version you can scroll through.