Painting = Finished. Everything else = just getting started.

I am still working on a name for it or even the series/collective that it will belong to but for now I am going to go ahead and call it "The Seven hour painting" because that is actually how long it took me to paint. While the pictures help you to get a sense of it in its finished state, it's truly amazing in person. 

The inspiration was actually an instagram photo I took some weeks ago. I talked about it in my last posting.

That's right. You heard me. That's a 40x40 canvas done with Gamblin brand oil paints, some liquin and some natural turpenoid, and it took me only seven hours. SEVEN HOURS. I seriously cannot believe it only took me seven hours from start to finish. Unbelievable.

I am as astounded by this fact as much as you might be. (Perhaps I am easily impressed? Or maybe I don't know anything about oil painting and large scale painting and this is completely normal.)

Whatever the case, I think it asserts and affirms the fact that giving my professional photography endeavors the "pink slip" from occupying the part of my life it   has was a very good thing. Or, as I like to think of it, very much a GOD thing. I have never ever been able to paint like this. NEVER. I mean, really? But that's kind of the point. I don't believe I did this.

I firmly believe that it was and is the power of Christ working through me to lay out the colors and values on the canvas the way you see it. I mean seriously? I have "dabbled in painting for probably five years or so but I only just learned how to oil paint this past summer in the five week intensive course I had to take at the local community college in order to satisfy some studio art credits for my Masters of Arts in Teaching program. As far as I would tell you (even now after completing this piece) I am a beginner at this whole business of oil painting.

I am still working on figuring out what the Lord wants me to do with my time and talents but I firmly believe that all of this with this painting is something that is very much a part of what He wants for me and from me. Is this the start of me trying to establish myself as a professional working oil painter? I don't know. I really don't know. I am not that concerned with such a thing either. All I know is that the Lord is truly providing me with the thing that makes me happier than anything in the world. And that is to be able to PAINT and CREATE beautiful things as inspired by Him and His creations.

My little girl is more and more inspired and encouraged to work alongside me on her own easel, see? I love the fact that she is learning to associate the delicious smells of oil paints and the colorful marks on a page with HOME. 

While I have not shared the "gory" details of my personal life from the past year or so, I will tell you that I feel like I have been in some serious rebuilding mode. It's been scary and maddening at times and I will tell you that there have been at least a dozen times when I have wanted to look at God and the trials and paces I know He has put in front of me to be tested by (and to choose Him in spite of) and say, "You know what, God? How about NO."

I haven't done that though. I haven't said no to Him. Rather, I have sought shelter in Him and asked for Him to tell me and show me what He wants from me and then comfort me when I have admitted to Him that it's too much for me to do alone.

As things are right now? I feel like I am in the midst of the part of the gospel that is the re-creation of it all. (The gospel starts out with the Creation and then the Fall happens followed by the Redemption and the Crucifixion and Resurrection and then the Re-creation because of it all.) While I know my life can always veer off course back into the Fall again, I know that just like I have in the most recent months especially, Christ is and will be for me always so that I can be redeemed over and over and over again. Lamentations reminds me of then it's discussed repeatedly throughout His word.

If you'd have asked me a month ago if I would be here having these things - an abandoned professional photography career, a fully-functional and actively producing home art studio, and a FINISHED 40x40 oil painting despite the fact that I haven't painted in months - I would not believed you. But because I believe in a sovereign, abundantly loving and forgiving, and truly provident Lord God Almighty, I can tell you that I (indeed) am here and this all is very much happening.

Amen. Absolutely, positively, and as loudly as I can say it - AMEN.

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UPDATE:

I removed the the light post at the base of the painting because it was driving me crazy. 

I felt like it destroyed the aesthetics, composition/visual armature of the piece, etc. etc etc. 

Check out the below for what I mean...