Having done the Art2Life Breadcrumbs challenge last week whilst on holiday I thought I’d have a go at the playing with paint using acrylics rather than the watercolours and pencils that I had with me at the time.
I enjoyed doing this piece. I had been in a low mood yesterday, letting something get to me that really I should not have dwelt on. I was restless this morning, my day off. I couldn’t settle to do any work on my owl painting and didn’t really know what I wanted to do. As I played with the paint- blobbing it straight from the tube onto the paper and scraping across with a palette knife or brush, I got absorbed in it. One the great difficulties I have is knowing when to stop. When is enough, enough?
I realise that I try to use up all the paint as I hate waste. I also don’t like to leave any white bits of paper showing through. This results in perhaps putting too much of a colour on the paper. I enjoyed using a palette knife. I haven’t used one much before so doing this has helped me to learn some of the ways in which paint reacts to different treatments.
I felt as though I want to glue things on so when the paint was dry, I did. I seem to remember an instruction saying that coating with medium or using medium as a glue works. So that’s what I did. Not sure which worked better, the medium or PVA glue that I resorted to using. In the end I used both. I am happy with the result.
I am glad I found the words: enjoy, wonderful and abundance. I felt uplifted as I worked on it and when I had finished I thought about God’s wonderful abundance of love for each of us. When life is chaotic and we aren’t sure where we are going or what will happen next, like the abstract painting, we can be sure that God knows and God cares and loves for each one of us, in abundance. So we need to remember to enjoy God’s wonderful abundance, day by day.
You may find the word wonderful difficult to see on the painting as it is very small and golden – from a sheet of words to put on home-made greetings cards. Sometimes we have to look hard to see the wonder in our lives, especially when our eyes are drawn to the dark and depressing. My dear husband says that one of the devil’s favourite tricks is to give us a magnifying glass to view our errors and things in our lives that we are not happy with. I think I fell for that one yesterday, big time!
I believe that God’s desire is that we remember that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, as we read in Psalm 139. The psalm goes on to assure us that wherever we are, God is there: he knows us better than we know ourselves. He loves us, accepts us as we are and as we draw nearer to him, trusting him to guide us, he transforms us bit by bit, leading us in the way of everlasting life. Jesus said that he came to give us life in all its fullness. Or another translation of the well known verse: “I have come so that they may have life, and may have it abundantly“ (John 10:10, Net bible). The footnote to that verse reads: “That is, more than one would normally expect or anticipate.“
My mental health is good these days; I am no longer depressed. I have been able to bounce back from a bad day partly because I have acquired the resilience that comes from trusting in God and the practise of dabbling with paint and art and letting myself be absorbed in it. That then leaves God a chance to speak to my heart. It took many years to get here and I am so glad that I took that journey of trusting in God and letting him lead me and I am so glad that I now know Jesus in my life, in abundance!
I am tempted to put the John 10:10 verse on the picture but…. perhaps I am beginning to learn when to stop. Enough is enough! I signed it; it is finished. I hope you like it.
Elizabeth Jones' Diary 