Sandi Hester

December 1, 2009

I’m Full

I don’t have time to be writing a post right now – but I must – I must brag and show off my God. Ever been overflowing and you didn’t have time to boast about Him, but some how you HAD to make time because above all the important things the day calls me to do, boasting in Him must come first.

I’m full. Full of turkey and ham – well not really because I’m a vegetarian, but full from all the things that go with turkey and ham – like side dishes and family. Yes, I’m full from those things, but I’m talking about a different kind of fullness. The full I’m feeling is what Jesus spoke of in John 10:10 “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” I’ve been overflowing in His fullness for several weeks now. I hope to stay here, but I’m sure I won’t – the pull of this world and selfishness will certainly pull me back out of His fullness at some point – it always does. But for now I will cherish the fullness of the life He’s come to give me. I can pin point when the fullness started – it was the week I said yes to go volunteer with the Alzheimer’s patients. For some reason God’s word catches me off guard sometimes when it actually proves true. Jesus said in losing your life you’ll find it – it’s so true. I can’t stop thinking about, praying for, and loving those forgot men and women. Jesus has seared them on my soul. It’s amazing how giving up one morning for some forgotten people can place you in the fullness of God’s presence, but it does and it has for me and Gayle. We’re seeing God do some amazing things with these people. His presence is so real and thick there – I long to get back to it (and them) each week.

Last week we ended our time with them circled around the table holding hands and we prayed. I was a little nervous about what the workers would think or say but the two that were down there with us jumped in the circle and grabbed hands and bowed their heads right along with us – thank you Lord! I’m not sure how to describe the countenance on the faces in that room when we lifted our heads – it was sweet and there was peace. I’m quite sure it was a sweet fragrance rising and pleasing to the Lord. One funny… when Gayle and I were leaving, sweet Marion followed us to the door – the locked door that you need a code to get through. She had been quite unsettled that day – she was trying to find her son and needed a ride “home” to Pennsylvania. She came up to us as we were leaving and asked if we were going through “that door”. She then asked us if she could “escape” with us – we told her we would get in a lot of trouble if we let her go through the door with us. I can’t remember her exact words but they were something to the effect that she understood and that it was ok she would just try again another day. She was the sweetest and kindest escape artist you’ve ever met!

I’m full from other things as well. I look around at other things in my life that would normally have me unhappy and discontent. The house situation is one of those things. We’re still in our rental. Some people won’t understand this and others will – being here would normally make me unhappy. I’m a nester, a decorator, and a home body. I’ve been asking for God’s patience in waiting on Him to find us a more permanent home and guess what – He’s giving me His patience AND contentment…more fullness. When our flesh is not given what it wants and it’s not satisfied – we can do one of two things: 1. give in to our flesh and be unhappy, spoiled, and discontent or 2. we can find joy in denying our flesh and lean into Jesus and find our joy and contentment in Him. This is a sweet place to be.

There’s several other things I could mention where I’m finding His fullness. He is so good, so sweet to me, and I’m so undeserving of His gracious kindness. I am thankful this holiday season… and full.

I want to thank Jay Hoth for inspiring me with his photography and for letting me paint from some of his photographs. This painting and the last painting were painted using his photos as references. Please look past the many typos I’m sure are here – my man (proofer) is in his busy season at work.

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November 13, 2009

He STILL Sets The Captives Free…

The painting above has nothing to do with this post – it’s just there because this is a painting blog. There’s no way around it – this is going to be a long one. Go get a cup of coffee and sit down and let me tell you about what my Jesus did today and please forgive the many typos my proofer is busy. All I can say is that my cup overflowith. I got an e-mail from a friend with a list of opportunities to serve in the community last week. There were two that stood out to me and I responded to the easier of the two. I’ve been praying and looking for ways to look outward and serve instead of inward lately. So since this door opened I thought I would see if the Lord had anything “inside” for me. The opportunity was to go to an assisted living facility and paint nails – easy enough. So I e-mailed the contact person (Gayle) and told her I was interested in helping. Her reply was that she already had enough help. I went back and forth on if I should tell her I was interested in the second option. The second option was a call for a “special person” (sooooo not me!) to sit and read and talk to some Alzheimer’s patients in their final stages of Alzheimers. The patients are in the basement of this facility behind locked doors. Ugghh – not sure if this is for me or not – were my first thoughts – this may be too much for me – can I do this??? After praying I responded that I was interested in helping her on Fridays. She sent me a pretty detailed e-mail about what it consisted of and told me it was a position for someone who was called to do this. We e-mailed some more and decided I would meet her up there today and “test the waters”. I’ll be honest – I was nervous. I wasn’t sure if I was up for it or not. But the door was still open and I thought I would go in and see if the Lord wanted me to stay. Gayle told me she spends a lot of time in prayer before she goes so that let me know I needed to do some serious praying before I went today too. For some reason this morning I wasn’t nervous at all. My prayers consisted of asking the Lord to give me His love for these people, to help me not turn back because of my flesh, and to be with me when I went into the “dungeon” (that’s what I was imaging it to be like). My first blessing was in the parking lot meeting Gayle. I knew this had to be a special lady if she was doing something like this. Come to find out she is Tina’s (the one who first sent me the e-mail) mother-in-law. As soon as I met her I knew I was going to like her – there was a kindred spirit. After we were led down the elevator and taken behind locked doors we met some of the ladies. We sat down and the only way I can describe what happened next is that the Spirit showed up. My throat started closing up, a large lump grew in my throat and my eyes turned into living wells. I lost it. For those who know me know this is not a normal thing for me – I’m not a weepy person. I got myself together quickly but I immediately loved these women. My heart hurt for them and went out to them. I couldn’t wait to love on them for this short hour (which turned into longer than that because we were having so much fun with them). It’s been a while since I’ve laughed so much. Our time with them started by Gayle pulling out her big bag of stuff she’d brought for us to do with them. Sarah (aka the resident thief – you’ll see why in a minute) shouted when Gayle pulled the bag out – she said something to the effects of – “there’s my bag! I knew it was somewhere” – she basically accused Gayle of stealing her bag. When Gayle proceeded to pull play-dough out of the bag Sarah said, “my bag had that in it too!!!” I guess to affirm that that was HER bag. Gayle then asked one of the ladies (I can’t remember her name but she was quite unforgettable) if she wanted to play with play-dough. The elderly lady shot Gayle a horrible look and said, “Did you just tell me to go to hell? Well you can go to hell too!” I lost it!!!! Gayle said, “no I didn’t say that!” One of the ladies walking by told her to not talk like that. She wanted to know why and I told her that can hurt people’s feelings when you talk to them like that. Gayle told her it also hurt Jesus’ heart. The lady replied with, “Did He tell you that?” Gayle said, “Why yes He did.” “Hmpph” was all the elderly lady replied. I knew the day was going to be interesting after that. The whole time was filled with one conversation after another like that. These ladies were a hoot! We had the best time with them. Irene was one of the ladies sitting by me. My heart is still hurting for her. She is bound up by fear. She’s like a scared little bird who jumps at everything. At one point she started to eat the play-dough and Gayle and I both told her NO at the same time. I considered going “in” after it but thought to myself that I was pretty sure you wouldn’t die from eating play-dough, well next thing I know Gayle IS GOING IN!!! I just knew she was going to loose a finger! She came out with all her fingers in tact thank goodness. If this post wasn’t so long I would tell you the funny stories about the baby doll Gayle brought and many other funny things. Well, the hour and a half flew by and it was time to clean-up and go home. Marianne (the sweetest and cutest little thing) couldn’t find her glasses so we started looking for them. Earlier Sarah had stolen them and we had to make her give them back – so I figured Sarah had taken them again. I went to Sarah and told her she needed to give Marianne’s glasses back. That didn’t work so Gayle told her we needed her help to find Marianne’s glasses. Next thing we know she was pulling them out of her pocket and gave them to Marianne. Sarah comes over to me and tells me she really doesn’t need them that much any ways and doesn’t it feel good when you can help someone who’s in need J. It was all too abundantly good. I am going to miss those sweet ladies until I see them next week. In an hour and a half my Father gave me His love for these sweet ladies and “set the captive free” if only for an hour and a half. These ladies were first held captive by the walls of their minds and now are held behind walls of brick and mortar. Only my Jesus can set them free from both and bring Light into the dark places. I can’t wait to meet with Him again next week in the “dungeon” – a place of forgotten captives who my Savior dearly loves and wants to bring joy into their dark world.

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November 11, 2009

Biltmore/Fall Trip Part 2

Monday morning we got up early (as usual) and after our quiet time with the Lord and breakfast we headed out as the sun was coming up. Grady took me to a place he found the day before that he thought would be a great place for me to paint – he was right! He took me to the Lagoon which is a man-made lake/pond that was purposely positioned so the Biltmore house would reflect in it. It was a beautiful morning but quite chilly so we bundled up. Grady walked around while I painted and took some photos of me and the house and he tried to do a little fishing (even though fishing is prohibited on the property – you didn’t know Grady had a rebellious streak did you?!). I thought it was very kind of him to come with me and just hang out while I painted. He’s so supportive of my painting – he always has his eye out for places to paint or taking pictures of things I may like to paint. You can see in the picture below the GREAT spot Grady picked out for me to paint.

I did a quick sketch of the Biltmore – I was planning on getting the reflection in the water but started too big and the reflection didn’t make it into the painting. It was also a very moist morning so I had a little bit of a hard time with my paints because they didn’t want to dry so I was painting wet in wet which is not how I usually paint. You can see my pitiful rendering above.

On the opposite page I did a map of the property (click on the picture below to see a close-up). I actually did the map on the car ride home - that’s one of the huge perks of watercolor – you can paint pretty much anywhere! However, I was a little sick by the time we got home because I was looking down at the page for way too long! On the map page you can see more of the old paper wrapped around the page (see previous post for explanation).

The last picture is one Grady took – you can see the reflection of the house really good in this picture…

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November 6, 2009

Biltmore/Fall Trip – Part 1

It’s taken me a little while to post about our trip because as soon as we got home we got a call that Grady’s uncle died and we headed back out the door to go to Birmingham for the funeral. I’m just not getting back into the swing of things here.

I’m going to do a few posts on our trip because it was a really good one and I want to make sure to cover it properly. We’re very thankful to the Lord for giving us such a sweet and fun time away together! We had BEAUTIFUL weather AND leaves – we were definitely there at peak time. Once we arrived on Saturday we checked into our hotel and got to know the lay of the land and had a great dinner together. We got up early Sunday morning and had our quiet time with the Lord and then headed to the Biltmore house for our first tour.

Me in front of Biltmore

WOW is all I have to say! We enjoyed the tour and history of the house more than we thought we would. It’s quite fascinating and if you get a chance to go (or haven’t been back for years) I highly suggest you make a trip out there. They have more of the house open than they ever have – and the audio “tour” (headphone you listen to) is a MUST – you would miss way to much without it. After lunch I was itching to paint. Grady hopped on a bike and toured the 8,000 acres (obviously he didn’t ride the scope of the entire property!) while I found a secluded spot to paint. I found this great little house peeping behind some flaming red burning bushes. It was a fun little house to paint and I really enjoyed my afternoon.

House I painted

I did some different things in the journals I took on the trip. Before we left I pre-pasted and taped different things in my journals. You’ll see some of these “different things” through my journal pages as I post about this trip – some of them are “interactive” – you’ll see what I mean in later posts.

On this journal spread you can see I used some vintage paper out of an old accounting book I found at an antique shop. I pasted part of the accounting paper on each journal page and wrapped it around the back of the page (can you see it on the house painting – it’s barely noticeable but I think it still adds some neat depth and texture to the painting – you can see a close-up below – just click on it to see it larger). Well, that’s all for the first post about our trip – more to come soon!

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October 20, 2009

Frog Hollow Farm

I had a great weekend from start to finish and I’d like to share a little piece of it with you because it has to do with art. A friend and (art) student of mine had a neat little art thing at her house this past Saturday. She lives on a 33 acre farm called Frog Hollow Farm and she has a beautiful home! She invited artists to come out on her land to paint for the day. The weather wasn’t the best and hindered some from coming – but not those of us who are hard core ! I love love love doing stuff like this. I was so glad Dawn decided to host it. She took great care of us with wonderful hot tea, hot coco, and coffee. She even came out and reheated mine for me ! I did have a little problem with whatever I was drinking though – I kept rinsing my watercolor brush out in my drink and then I would forget and drink from it (until Dawn was kind enough to bring a little stool for me to set my coffee on – thanks Dawn)!

Grady and I are leaving this weekend for a little fall painting/fishing trip to North Carolina to the Biltmore house, so this weekend was good practice to use my travel painting supplies and see if I was bundling up enough for the cooler weather. I got these great gloves that have the fingers cut out so I can paint and still keep my hands fairly warm. I think I finally have some great travel painting supplies. It’s taken me a while to get them just right. I’ve tried out several different palettes, tables, and chairs but what I’ve got now works perfect for the job. I got this great little light table that worked really well Saturday – it gave me just the right amount of table top room and my water container hanging to the side worked perfectly. I also ordered a new little travel palette that I LOVE. It’s just like my regular one but smaller. If you look close you can see that in some of the pans (the little plastic things the paint goes in) I’ve put 2-3 colors.

First time to use travel box - yummy clean colors - this is the last time it will look like this!

I only completed one sketch because of the frequent warm-up breaks I took. I hope Dawn has us out again – I had a great day of painting with other artists - even if it was cold and windy.

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October 9, 2009

Day At The Zoo

Well, more than a month later I’m getting around to posting about our painting day at the zoo. Monica is a friend I met in my painting class I taught here in Hendersonville – she’s a great artist. I was wanting to go to the zoo to paint and sketch but was a little intimidated to go by myself, so I e-mailed Monica to see if she wanted to go with me. She said yes even though she had not done much plein air painting (that just means you get outside and paint – not sure why it has to have a fancy name) but she’d love to give it a try. We had a blast! We seriously could not have had better weather that day! The first place we set-up “camp” was by the zebra and some other gazelle type thing – oh yea, there was an ostrich in there too. Painting the zebra was not as easy as we thought – they moved like crazy. Monica did a much better job at it than I did. I got frustrated very quickly and moved to some non-moving things – first was a grouping of rocks (not posted here) then I stepped it up and painted the content and still ostrich. I found out later why it was so content to pose for me – it had a lame leg – poor guy! I did give the zebra another try once I was home – I did a quick sketch from a picture I had taken. I used one color through the sketch – I wanted to just paint the background and stripes to see if I could get a suggestion of zebra – I think it worked for such a quick sketch. After painting there for a little while we took a bathroom break, stretched, and moved to an interesting part of the zoo. It was an area that had beautiful stuff to paint that didn’t move – old buildings and a flower garden (you can see Monica plopped right down among the flowers and started painting). It was a nice way to finish the day. I’ll definitely go back there – actually, I was going to go yesterday but realized school was out and that it could be a little crowded. Below are a couple other sketches I did while there. We had several people stop and look at our paintings – everyone was really nice. The experience helped us get over our stage fright of painting around people. You can click on any of the pictures to see them larger.

Monica painting zebra

Monica's zebra sketch

Sketching supplies

Monica sketching flowers

My zebra sketch

My ostrich sketch

Sketch I did of old building at zoo

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October 3, 2009

Blessings

I will bless those who bless you. Genesis 12:3

Well, we are all moved into our rental and getting settled in. We have felt overwhelmed by several who have abundantly blessed us during this move. I have learned how to better serve and bless others through this move – I’ll share more on that later. The day before we had the movers scheduled some dear friends came over with two (of their seven) kids and moved ALL of our boxes for us. You have no idea how this family served and blessed us. Their two youngest boys that helped didn’t complain one time and they worked constantly – hard work may I add. I didn’t pack my boxes for friends to move – I packed them for movers to move – do you know what I mean??? Some, if not many, were HEAVY!!! I just hated it every time they picked up a box labeled ‘books’ (there were way too many of those) or ‘china’ – I should have just labeled them ‘heavy’. To have friends who cared about our stuff and took great care in the way they handled our fragile stuff was such a blessing to me. My sister-in-law and my mom also blessed us with meals. This may seem small but you have NO idea what a blessing that was to us. We were TIRED and tired of eating fast food by the day of the real move. There were a couple of nights I would have just gone to bed hungry I was so tired – but for Grady that wasn’t on option . I learned how huge a meal can be during something like this.

Here’s what I learned about being a blessing to someone who’s moving: meals are huge – even if they’re not home cooked meals – just to pick something up for someone so they don’t have to think about it or go in to a food place when they are dirty and stinky. I also learned that a meal a night or two before the big move day would be a huge blessing too because everything is packed up. Some are like my Mom and have the gift of making food and being hospitable – if you are like that and would like to bless a friend who is moving then take them a meal the day before the move. If you are like me (and another friend – Carrie are you out there???) – who find cooking for others stressful (not sure why I feel like this – I think I stress too much about what to make – will they like it? – how do I package it? – do I take it cold or already heated?) then just pick something up from Cracker Barrel or some other convenient food place – seriously, ANYTHING will be good to a starving, tired, dirty family who’s moving.

Thank you SOOOOOOO much to those who loved on us during that stressful time. I’m praying the above scripture for you.

The picture below has nothing to do with us moving. It’s just the only painting I have to share with you. It’s one I did before we moved. I’ve been painting in my prayer journal at times and this is a painting I did from another of Bea’s photos. I’m hoping to be back on here soon to share pictures from my visit to the zoo and some details about commissions I’m going to start doing.

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September 17, 2009

Loosey Goosey

… at least that’s how I’ve been feeling lately. This house stuff has been a roller coaster full of ups and downs. We couldn’t find a house fast enough (well, actually we put contracts on two houses but they both fell through after the inspection) so we were down to two weeks before we had to be out of our house and finally found a rental. We had to sign a year’s lease but that should be fine since we are trying to find some land to build on. We’ll be leaving most everything packed until we move into our permanent home. I’m only unpacking the absolute necessities. It may feel a little like camping while we’re there. I may also start doing commission paintings just to get me out of the house. I still plan on doing a post about my visit to the zoo, but I just thought I would give you an update on our move first. We close on our house Monday.

This is another painting I did from Bea’s blog – you can find this little guy in this post - I loved him as soon as I saw him and couldn’t wait to get to my paints. I also painted the rooster in those pictures – I’ll post him soon. Back to packing…

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August 31, 2009

Getting Ready For The Zoo

Three weeks from today we close on our house and we STILL don’t have a place to move into – to say the least, things have been CRAZY around here. We are frantically trying to find a place to rent. So in the midst of all the boxes, packing, looking at houses and rentals things are feeling like a zoo around here – so I thought I would take a break from this zoo and visit the real zoo . One of my painting students and I are heading to the zoo tomorrow to paint/sketch! I don’t do this type of thing often (neither does Monica) but we’re feeling adventurous – really I just need a break from house stuff. I’m looking forward to the distraction. I hope I have some great paintings and pictures to share with you. It may take me a while to get them posted because we are in the thick of packing around here – and it seems like trying to find a place to live has turned into a full time job. Below is a sketch I did in my cigar journal. I painted him from a blog I follow that has GREAT photos! I contacted Bea about her blog and her pictures to see if I could use them as references to paint from – she gave me the go ahead – YIPPY!!!!! This post is where I painted the sheep from (see if you can find him) - I also painted the rooster and goose – pictures of those little guys will be coming soon – even sooner if I don’t have anything to show you from my zoo outing. Bea, thanks again for letting me use your photos – they are AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL! As always, you can click on the photo below to see it larger. No time for proofing…

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August 27, 2009

Christmas in August

For the record, let me just begin by saying I don’t do commissions (at least not right now), but my sister begged me to do one for her to give as a gift. She asked me to paint her dear friend’s house for a Christmas gift. You may be thinking that it’s a little early to post this and you’re right except that I did this right before all our packing/moving process started. I knew if I didn’t do it now I would not get around to it at Christmas. My sister said that every time her friend Tasha (who I’m also friends with – we graduated high school together) came to her house she was jealous of her house painting and she wanted one of her own. I snuck over to Tasha and Joe’s house and snapped some quick photos. I had a lot of fun painting it. You may be wondering why I’m posting it if it’s a Christmas gift – Amanda went ahead and gave it to her! I had a feeling that would happen . I’ve included some pictures of the “process” – I actually remembered to take some snap shots as I was painting – thought Tasha and Joe might like to see those. After we get settled into our new house I may start doing commissions on houses – don’t hold me to that, but I am considering it. As always, you can click on any of the pictures below to see them larger.

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