Sandi Hester

Paintings by Sandi Hester

Category: Scripture

January 28, 2008

Enjoying Springlike Weather

Do you give the horse his strength or clothe his neck with a flowing mane?  Job 39:19 

After church yesterday Grady and I got the springtime itch because the weather was so nice (especially compared to the weather we’ve been having) so we decided to get out and enjoy it.  Grady loves to creek fish so that’s what he did outdoors and I painted.  I found a field with some horses in it and decided to try my hand at painting some horses.  I think I could have done a lot better job if they hadn’t moved so much!  I would get one leg painted and the horse would move – it was very frustrating :).  As you can tell I need a LOT more practice with horses – preferably non-moving horses.  Next time I think I’ll take pictures and paint them in my studio (AKA kitchen) at home – that way they can’t move on me and I won’t have to be in such a hurry to paint them that I make them look like moose instead of horses.  After a while I gave up on the horses and drove around and found an old house I love off of Station Camp road.  I found the perfect place to park and painted my heart out.  I really like how the house turned out – especially compared to those poor horses!  I’ll definitely be painting the house again.

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January 25, 2008

The Mountain Peaks Belong to Him

In His hands are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to Him.  Psalm 95:4

Man alive if that doesn’t fire you up I don’t know what will!  From the depths to the heights – it all belongs to God.  We got to see our fill of mountains on our trip – especially the day we snowmobiled up and down them all day!  I have to say, my God has quite an abundant stock of mountain peaks!  And not only do the mountains belong to Him, but He owns all the cattle on those mountains as well (Ps 50:10).  Praise you Lord, for You alone are mighty!

Here is a quick sketch of the mountains – it’s one of my favorites from the whole trip.

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6 Comments
January 24, 2008

Eating

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.  I Corinthians 10:31

This post if dedicated to Mitzi Lindsey, because she got a kick out of my ‘cute little soup’.  Well, Mitzi here’s the cute soup again :).  I thought it was so cute I decided to paint it one day on our trip.  It’s just a quick watercolor sketch I did one day while Grady was out skiing.  I enjoyed painting it almost as much as I enjoyed playing with the cute little bowl and lid.  I think it must be a woman thing.  Women, do you enjoy your food better when it comes out in some cute container?  Like when coffee comes out and you get cute little sugar cubes instead of just the plain old sugar packets?  I LOVE stuff like that.  It doesn’t take much to get me tickled!  The Lord knows that too.  I wonder if He had a smile on His holy face the day those cute little bowls were made knowing I would one day have fun with it, embarrass my husband (as I took the lid on and off just because it was fun), and give thanks to Him for the little things in life.  Even in our eating and drinking we can give glory to God.  Ok, speaking of drinking I’d like to say for the record that those bottles in the background are olive oil and balsamic vinegar – NOT WINE :)!

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January 23, 2008

Rooftops

When I looked up ‘roof’ in my bible concordance for this post I got a little tickled.  There were 2 scriptures listed – both quite different…

Jesus said, “What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the ROOFS.”  Matthew 10:27

Women, can you think of what the other verse about the roof is???…  Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife. Proverbs 21:9  YIKES!

The reason for the roof scriptures are because I painted several rooftop paintings on our trip since our room was up high and it looked down on the valley.  Here’s one I painted that turned out fun.  I tried to capture the smoke coming out of the chimneys early in the morning.

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January 21, 2008

Snow Shadows

The day is Yours, and Yours also the night; You established the sun and moon.  It was You who set all the boundaries of the earth; You made both summer and WINTER.  Psalm 74:16-17

Grady is going to shout out a big a-men about God making winter – I can hear him now :).  Here’s another sketch from our trip titled ‘snow shadows’, because I loved the shadows as much or more than the actual trees.  I’ll be posting more paintings from the trip throughout the week.

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January 11, 2008

Colorado

Wash me, and I will be whiter than SNOW.  Psalm 51:7

Grady and I are in Beaver Creek Colorado – the same place we came in the Fall.  It’s beautiful here and this morning the snow is coming down hard.  Thought I would post some pictures for you.  You can click on them to make them larger.

First two are from our room and the third is the creek by our hotel…

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The first picture you can see my paints set up and where I was painting and the second picture is a self portrait :)…

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These are from lunch yesterday.  Grady had been on the slopes all morning – nice hair Grady 🙂  (I can’t say much about hair – mine is looking quite ruff in the above picture).  I ordered soup for lunch and it came in this really cute pot and it even had a lid!  I love cute stuff like that – I had to take a picture of it.  The lady took the lid off for me and I put it back on so I could take it off myself :).  Grady was embarrassed.

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8 Comments
December 26, 2007

From Every Tribe

And they sang a new song: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because You were slain, and with Your blood You purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”  Revelation 5:9

This painting definitely flowed from the Spirit – He inspired me – and I’m convinced He painted it.  This one seemed to just run off my paint brush onto the paper.  I’ll tell you a little bit of where the inspiration started.  We have some friends who are missionaries in Africa – way out in the bush – and they post pictures on their blog and send us pictures by e-mail periodically.  I am constantly amazed by the pictures they send us – especially during the rainy season in Africa.  The grasses there during that season are amazing – they are neon green and very tall.  Recently I got a picture from them that made my mouth drop, my spirit soar, and left me running for my paints.  I knew immediately which scripture to put with the painting (the above scripture).  Below the painting is the picture that inspired me and I have also posted the progress of this painting.  For some reason I decided to take pictures as I painted and I thought I would share those with you. 

What a joy it’s going to be to stand around the throne of Christ one day with EVERY tribe, language, people, and nation and praise His holy Name for His costly purchase of men.  If you do not have a love for the nations or don’t understand God’s love for the nations I encourage you to step out of your comfort zone and go on a mission trip.  You will never be the same and you will never see your God the same.  He, and those He loves, will be forever written upon your heart.

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15 Comments
December 21, 2007

Your 2nd Blog Christmas Card

The Lord Himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and you will give birth to a son, and will call Him Immanuel.  Isaiah 7:14

The verse above is one of many prophecies Jesus fulfilled when He came the first time to this earth.  Jesus fulfilled more than 700 prophecies when He came the first time and there are more prophecies concerning His death than any other subject.  These prophecies concerning His death were very specific too.  Psalm 22 is like reading a medical manual about how a person would die from crucifixion.  When David wrote that Psalm he had never even heard of crucifixion – in fact, crucifixion was not even invented or used for 200 years after David wrote Psalm 22.

I recently learned what the word Advent means – it simply means ‘to come’.  So we celebrate the coming of Christ during Christmas.  But we are actually in between two advents – Christ’s first coming and His second coming.  What a great time of year to reflect back on Christ’s first coming and look ahead to His second coming.  Around our Advent wreath I have placed scriptures about Christ’s first coming and His second coming.  It’s been special to reflect on both. 

Here’s another little picture of the town of Bethlehem.

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December 6, 2007

O Little Town Of Bethlehem

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.  Luke 2:4

But you, Bethlehem, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come from me One who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.  Micah 5:2

I had an idea to paint my own Christmas cards this year.  I knew exactly what I wanted to paint for our cards – the little town of Bethlehem with the stars shining above it.  I’m not sure what compelled me to do this, because I never send out Christmas cards.  I’m just not the Christmas card sending type.  It falls under administrative duties and I don’t have the gift of administration.  In fact administrative stuff really stress me out – I would make a horrible secretary!  I painted the Christmas cards and then, because I don’t send Christmas cards, I just stashed the little paintings aside.  A few of my friends were looking through my paintings and they all loved these little paintings of Bethlehem, so I thought I would share them in my blog for some holiday posts.  I guess you could kind of consider this a blog Christmas card – does that count???  If it does then I can say for once I sent out Christmas cards :).  Let’s consider it official – here’s my Christmas card to you: “Merry Christmas from Grady and Sandi”! 

I made two pictures of the little town of Bethlehem.  I’ll post one now and one later in the month.  Hmmm, that means you’ll be getting TWO Christmas cards from me – wow, I’m outdoing myself this year :).  Oh yea, I’m not sure if you can see it or not, but the name of Jesus is in the stars.

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December 1, 2007

Christmas Cactus

Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord.  Luke 2:11

Today’s the first day of December!  In honor of the first day of this great month that we celebrate our Savior’s birth, here is a Christmas verse and painting.  The Christmas Cactus is one of my favorite plants for several reasons.  First of all, it blooms around Christmas – actually it will bloom all year round if you take good care of it (I tend to neglect it until October and then I give it tender loving care because I want to have those delicate beautiful blooms around the house during the cold months).  Secondly, I love it because it reminds me of my Granny.  She had a green thumb and had these around her house.  I always think of her when I see them.  The third reason I love these plants is because they are hardy – meaning they can withstand just about anything and they don’t get bugs – they’re just all around good plants to have. 

The other day I was at Publix and they had some little Christmas Cactus on sale and I couldn’t resist buying one.  I have one in my office, but placed this one in my kitchen.  The one in my office is still trying to revive itself after a long summer of neglect, so it doesn’t have many blooms on it right now.  After weeks of not painting I was finally inspired to paint my new little Christmas Cactus!  It’s not the best painting I’ve done, but it turned out better than I thought it would after going so long without painting.  Happy early Christmas!

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