Sandi Hester

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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August 21, 2009

Nile – A River And A Son – Both In Africa

…at least for now – the son will be coming home soon… some dear friends of ours will be bringing home their baby son, Nile, from Africa soon! You can read about their journey here. They had a baby shower and this is what I made for them. The picture is not Nile – it’s another African baby I got from a friend’s website – but I wanted something in the picture part. I LOVE the name they picked out for their precious little boy. I used my antique hand carved letterpress letters to do his name. I wanted his name to look “watery” and I think it turned out like that. You can click on the pictures to see them larger. We can’t wait to meet little Nile, Clay and Tracy!

On another note, I’d like to point out a new feature on my blog. At the top you’ll notice I’ve added new pages where you go see certain groups of paintings together. For instance if you’d like to see all my Africa paintings you can now go to the ‘missions’ page and scroll through and see all those paintings. You can also click on any of the paintings and it will take you to that post so you can read about the particular painting and see the scripture that goes with it.

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August 15, 2009

Unexpected Finds

What do Africa, cigars, packing, and bugs have to do with each other? Probably not what you think. You can probably figure out the packing part – that’s what I’ve been doing lately, but what do the others have to do with packing – well I’ll explain. I was clearing out a bookshelf and I came across this unused cigar journal (yes, Grady used to smoke cigars – not any more though) and I was going to put it in the thrift store pile but after I opened it I really liked the paper in it and the little boxes at the top (I think that’s where you’re suppose to put the cigar wrapper or something). I thought that would be a perfect place to do a little sketch and thought I would hold onto it to use as a sketch book. I even like all the little places to put info. about your cigars – or in my case my sketches. I’ve really liked how the paint responds to the paper too. Ok, so here’s how Africa and bugs come into play. We took some books we were getting rid of to a local used book store and while I was there found a great kids book on insects and I bought it to sketch/paint from. I LOVE sketching bugs for some reason. The first bug I sketched was a beetle from Africa – which I thought was appropriate because my mind and heart and prayers have been in and for Africa after a friend sent me a blog that has been rocking my world since I first started reading it. You will be blessed from reading anything on it – but here are a couple that will make you wonder who does this? It’s a blog started by a young lady who now lives in Africa (she’s from Brentwood) and has around 14 kids and feeds and cares for 400 more. She went when she was 18 – she’s 20 or 21 now. You won’t believe what she’s done with her life. Read here and here and here to get a taste of this young girls servant life for Christ. Her posts are long but more than worth the time. It’s truly rocked my world. I have been addicted to her blog lately and can’t stop reading it! Our dinner time consists of me giving Grady the latest on Katie – Grady says he doesn’t have to read her blog because I’m telling him all about it :). Ok so was this post random or what???

July 14, 2009

Summer Produce

This week in class I’m going to teach my students how to do contour drawing and how to measure to get the right scale of things. We’ll be doing this by painting from a simple still life set up so I’ve been sketching several still lifes lately. Since I’ve moved my “art studio” to the bonus room (because I had to make the breakfast room back into a breakfast room for the sake of selling our house) I’ve had a lot more room to spread out. I have a table I’ve set up with a light source and I’ve been doing little fruit and veggie still lifes – I’ve really been enjoying it. I can just paint whatever I buy from the grocery that week. Sketches are so much fun to do because you’re not worried about painting a master piece – the point is to just have fun practicing your painting skills and enjoy the paint flowing on the paper. AND if the painting turns out resembling what you are painting then that’s just a plus in my book.

I chose a verse you might not expect for this post, but it deals with food so I think it’s appropriate. It’s found in Proverbs 31 which describes the wife of noble character. There’s much about this women I love and long to be, but there’s one particular verse that jumps out to me because a dear friend and mentor (Terry Franklin) pointed something beautiful out to me one day during bible study. Verse 15 says, “She gets up while it is still dark; she provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls.” Terry pointed out that this woman was a servant to her servants. That hit me like a ton of bricks. What a beautiful picture that is – this godly woman gets up extra early (“she gets up while it is still dark”) not just to take care of her family, but to graciously make breakfast for the very people who were probably hired to get up early to make the very food they are being served. Who does that – who takes the servants place – who does the servants job? It’s such a perfect picture, and sort of prophecy, of what Jesus came to do. He picked up the servants towel and served the servants and then called us to do the same. Do we do that? DO I DO THAT? I can answer pretty quickly – no. Oh how I want to be more like that though!

I have to tell you a funny story. At the bible study where Terry was teaching on this verse a lady responded that if the Lord would give her a servant she would happily serve her! Do we think about the people who are hired to do the things we don’t want to do – do you think about your trash man and go the extra mile to make his job easier? What if we cleaned up a little extra in the public bathroom instead of making a mess for someone else to clean up. What would tomorrow look like if we looked around for “servant towels” to “pick up”… we may need to get up a little earlier to do so.

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July 10, 2009

Beginner Watercolor Class – Week 3

I can’t believe I only have 2 more weeks with this class!!! I’m going to miss these guys like crazy. I’m enjoying teaching far more than I thought I would. Well, as I predicted the class did great with skies and landscapes – see their sketches below (you can click on the pictures to see them larger). I’ve also included a couple more action shots from class. In the middle of class I got a text from Grady that said, “SOLD!!!!PRAISE JESUS!!!!!!”. Yep, that’s right – we’re under contract now on our house. I just can’t get over how quick this has all gone. I have a feeling I will be doing more packing than painting in the coming weeks, so things will be slim on the blog I have a feeling.

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