Sandi Hester

March 12, 2010

Bad Bad Blogger

I have been a bad blogger lately! We’ve had a crazy few months – I won’t bore you with our lives (I will share one of the unexpected things that happend to us in the next few posts) I’ll just try to make up for the pitiful blogging I’ve been doing. I’ve had several posts rolling around in my brain and hopefully they’ll make it to my computer sooner than later. The first two will cover our trip to Montana we just took. Hopefully all the pictures will make up for my lack of blogging :). I painted quite a bit on this trip – the paintings may seem random since I only have one mountain/snow painting. I usually don’t paint many snow scenes – it’s just not my thing, so I bought a field guide-book from our local used bookstore before we left and that’s why I have random things like rabbits and mushrooms in my sketchbook paintings from this trip.

Ok, first some pictures from this BEAUTIFUL place. You know you’re at a beautiful place when this (see picture below) is the view from the airport!! And it only got better from there.

Here’s a picture of Grady – check out that view!

And here’s one of me during one of the two days it snowed – needless to say visibility was low but the powder was great!

Here are some of the things I painted. I only took sketchbooks and just had fun with my painting. The first three were painted from my field guide book and the last one was from Bea’s wonderful blog (she’s given me permission to paint from her beautiful pictures and I haven’t painted from one in a while but I loved this very neutral picture of this old fish market). You can click on any of the pictures to see them larger.

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January 25, 2010

Silent Auction

Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. Revelation 7:16

My sister and her husband are adopting a little girl from Africa and I’ve donated a painting to help them raise money for the adoption. You can read about their story here and bid in the silent auction for this painting. The painting is matted and will fit a 11x 14 frame and has a hand aged piece of scripture on the mat with the above scripture on it. I painted this long before they were thinking about adopting but it sure is fitting for the adoption of their little girl. We are praying for little Macy and we can’t wait to meet her!

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January 4, 2010

Christmas Commissions

I finally got the courage up to give commission work a try. I picked a limited subject (houses) that I thought I had a relative grasp on and threw it out there to friends and family. I had 5 takers! That was just the right number to try and get done before the holidays. They took me MUCH longer than I thought they would. I painted from 3-5 different paintings of the same house for each commission – it took me that many times to get it right. Each painting took 3-5 days to paint, so if you add that up you can quickly see why it took me longer than I thought it would. During the time I was working on these commissions I did little else – my days were filled with painting – which was great and fun but something I would not want to do all the time. If I wasn’t painting I was thinking about how to resolve something in the painting I was having problems with. Each painting was mated and had a scripture on the mat that went with the painting. For the homes I used Joshua 24:15 “As for me and my house we will serve the Lord.” and for the cabins and vacation homes I used two different scriptures: Mark 6:31 “Come with Me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” and Matthew 11:28 “Come to Me, all you who are weary and I will give you rest.” In the end I was really happy with all of them and my customers seemed to be really happy with them too!

The first commission I got was from my friend Tasha. I painted the house they live in now some time ago and she wanted me to paint their first house for her. She said she’ll be having me paint every house they live in :). She talked to her husband about it and he told her that’s what he was going to do to surprise her for Christmas! After she told me that my mind got to thinking – we could still pull that off as a surprise for her. She e-mailed me a day or so later and told me if I was getting lots of Christmas requests not to worry about getting to her’s until I was done with Christmas gifts – that gave me the time I needed to work with her husband in surprising her. Joe (her husband) and I worked it out and she had no idea! Fun stuff!!

The second commission was Sheila’s family cabin. I did this one 50 million times – ok well maybe not that many but it felt like it :). She ended up choosing 2 of them :)! They were both very different and captured different things about the cabin and land.

Each commission was so different. Jana was my third commission and she wanted me to paint her son’s cabin. It was challenging but fun because it had all kinds of different wood and stone on it – all kinds of textures and colors. My favorite part of this painting are the shingles.

The fourth commission was from a student I had in my last watercolor class. Her in-laws are building their dream home and she wanted me to paint it for them. It’s a beautiful craftsman style home and called for a tighter painting. I feel like as you look at each of these paintings it looks like a different artist painted some of them – but I promise I did all of them myself!

The last painting I did was for a dear friend. She’s one of my all time favorite people to be with – she is hilarious, loves the Lord, and is one of the kindest people I know. Her dad is my allergist doctor. He is the BEST! Seriously, he treats me like one of his own daughters. She and her other siblings went in together and commissioned me to paint their family cabin on the lake. For some reason this was my favorite one. I think because I just let loose. It was taking me several tries for each painting so I just thought the first go around on Mary Julia’s painting I would just have fun – and what do you know it turned out the first try! I love the looseness of the painting. She insisted I put the flags in the painting because she said it was a family thing and they gave a splash of color that goes well with the green roof.

I hope each of the families were joyfully surprised with their paintings at Christmas. Each person that picked their painting up was really excited about giving it to their family for Christmas. It was a great experience and I hope all the families find it to be a gift they will treasure for years to come! Below are some of the pictures I painted from – I didn’t have a digital picture of all of them because some people gave me hard copies. You can click on any of the pictures to see them larger.

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December 16, 2009

Winter/Spring Watercolor Classes!

The summer painting classes went so well I’m doing it again! I’m really excited about getting back into the classroom. I had a blast sharing all I knew about watercolor painting. This is one of those classes I share everything I know – I don’t hold anything back. This class is also designed for someone who’s never painted (or can’t even draw) to someone who’s been painting a while. It will get your creative juices flowing and give you a great excuse to paint each week. Here are the details of the class:

BEGINNER AND INTERMEDIATE WATERCOLOR CLASS: Watercolor is a great medium to work in. It is cheaper than most mediums, quick, easy to clean-up, exciting, versatile, very portable, and a medium that almost anyone can be successful in. This class is designed for someone who has never painted in watercolor all the way to someone who feels they have a good grasp of the medium but wants to take it further. I’ll share all the tricks of the trade – I hold nothing back! In this eight week class you will learn the basic skills of watercolor painting, the best materials to use, how to mix colors that are bright and not muddy, how to make beautiful rich darks and neutrals, how to let the paint do most of the work, different ways of applying the paint, contour drawing, different types of brush work, how to paint flowers, trees, skies, landscapes, still life, and people. The focus of the class will be painting in a loose style focusing on suggesting things instead of stating every detail. Each class I’ll give instruction on what we’re learning that day then do a demonstration and the last part of the class you’ll practice what I taught while I walk around and give one-on-one help to each student. This class is loaded with information and inspiration! This is an 8 week class starting January 20th from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm.

Click here Watercolor Registration Form and Supply List for the registration form and supply list – just print it, fill it out, and mail it in. Let me know if you have any questions. There are only 10 spots in the class and they fill up fast so don’t delay if you’re interested! Don’t forget this could be a great Christmas gift for you or for a loved one.

The pictures are out of one of my journals. Above is a close-up. I did this one really quickly – just wanted to do something quick and easy and loose. I love doing butterflies – they are so colorful and fun!

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December 11, 2009

Biltmore/Fall Trip Part 4

This was our final day of the trip and I was intending on getting some serious painting in. I painted from breakfast until lunch. Grady went back to the Biltmore to do some more tours while I painted. He was so kind each day to find something to do while I did what I love to do. This is the “inside” of the building you saw in my last post. The building creates a kind of court-yard and has an ice cream store, shop, and several other neat little spaces. I found a spot in the shade and as out of the way as I could be. I did have several people stop by and look at what I was doing. I get very nervous when people do that – guess it’s my insecurity over my paintings. Below you can see my view of what I was painting. I thought I’d get the “Creamery” (ice cream shop) in the painting in honor of Grady – that man loves him some ice cream!

Here you can see a better view of my set-up and my supplies – that’s not coffee in the cup 🙂 – it’s my dirty paint water. I LOVE my new little travel palette – isn’t she cute!

Here’s the final sketch – you can click on it to see it larger. It was a fun relaxing day and it challenged me a little with people being around. That wraps up our fall trip – finally!

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December 11, 2009

Biltmore/Fall Trip Part 3

It feels a little weird to go back to sharing about my trip after the last couple of posts, but our trip was a blessing from the Lord too and I want to wrap it up (I have one more post on it after this one). At this point I can’t remember what day of the trip this was, but it was one of my favorite painting days even though it got cut short because the rain pushed me inside. That morning I knew exactly where I wanted to paint – in the “kitchen” garden. It’s the garden they used to use for the meals and they still have an active garden there now. I loved this little place! I can’t remember what they called the building in the background but I painted the inside of it the next day – I’ll be sharing these pictures next.

That morning I found a quiet little place to set-up my gear and I was looking forward to painting for a couple of hours. It drizzled on me the whole time I was painting. I’m not sure if you can tell it or not but the rain was creating some neat texture on my painting! It quickly started a pretty good down pour and I had to scurry like crazy to get everything in the car before I was finished with my painting. I was able to finish the painting in the room because before it started raining I was able to get some photos.

This is the “interactive” page I was telling you about. Before we left for the trip I pasted different types of papers and some small envelopes on random pages. This was one of the pages with an envelope which worked out perfectly because it allowed me to do a small painting of something in the garden. I call it interactive because you get to pull the small painting out – kind of like something you’d find in a kids book – I found it to be quite fun 🙂 and will be adding this type of thing in my journals more often. I took some beautiful pictures of what I think was rhubarb but I’m not 100% sure – I forgot to look at the tag thingy. Here’s the picture I was inspired to paint from – the light was shining through the stalks making the colors really sing!

And this is the mini painting found in the envelope. The envelope allowed me some fun space to journal too. Even with the rain and short time I had to paint I have some great memories from that morning! I do love this gift of painting the Lord has given me – I especially love it when it allows me to be out in His beautiful creation!

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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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