Spring Things

by sandihester

I want to thank all of you who sent e-mails and left comments on my blog about losing our dog. You were all so thoughtful and left such sweet words of sympathy and comfort. Thank you for thinking of us!

On to a happier note… Grady and I celebrated our 12 year wedding anniversary this past weekend – yahoo!!! I’m amazed at the blessing the Lord has bestowed on our marriage – it seems to get better and better each year. Of course it gets that way with work – Grady and I both work very hard on our marriage. The Lord has been gracious to teach both of us with each passing year how to be a better wife and husband. The secret is in following His Word – He’s laid it all out in the Bible on how to be a godly wife and husband and it can only be done in the power and grace of Jesus Christ.

Over the weekend I went to a wedding shower of a dear friend who is a godly young woman. I wanted to give her something special – I worked for days on this painting and was pleased with how it turned out. I did something new with this painting – something I’ve wanted to try for a while. Watercolor usually has to be framed because it has to be protected, but I did this one on paper and then mounted it on canvas. You can’t use watery based mediums to seal a watercolor painting but I found that you can use wax – wax like you use to seal furniture. I’m not sure how it will stand the test of time – it could look really bad in 30, 50, or a 100 years but you never know until you try :). The wax turned the white paper a little yellow but I like that aged look. I’ve also wanted to try adding some sewing to my paintings. I sewed on the painting itself and I also sewed all the hand-aged/hand-torn papers together. I wanted the strings to hang and show – I liked that look with the bird – kind of reminds me of a bird’s nest. I’ll be posting more birds soon – you’ll get to see what this little birdie was inspired from.

The scripture I used for this painting is Matthew 6:25-34 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear… Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” The title of the painting is “Do Not Worry”. I wanted to keep that cute little thing, but he had another home. More birdies to come soon. You can click on the pictures to see more details.

Being Good Friday I thought I’d leave you with something I pray you’ll linger on throughout the day – it’s worth lingering on I promise – http://desiringgod.org/Blog/2313_barrabas_and_me/.