Hallelujah!

Hallelujah!

Well, I am not ready for a (complete) switch to my website blog and newsletter, as it turns out. Which is actually a good thing, since most of my newsletter subscribers did not move with me! (If you want to get my newsletters that are written for and sent from my website, click here and fill in the info.) At least for now, I will probably still use this blog site for my daily exercises and longer 'stories' of my work. AND I will stick with my mail chimp newsletter to share these with readers. 

I have been having SUCH a great time in the studio lately! Painting is always a pleasure for me, but lately, it has been even better - I have been knowing what I want to paint before I go to the studio,  getting results that I like, and getting SO messy! What fun. 

Sold
11" x 14"
Painted with artist quality heavy-body acrylic paint on 1.5” deep gallery wrapped canvas

Click here to view on my website. 

Today's post is a painting that is intended to help me plan a larger companion piece to my painting Higher Glory. It has been about 8 months since I finished that painting, and it is challenging to get back into painting a similar one. I am now remembering and seeing some things that will help tie the two together. So I am glad I tried a study first! 

This smaller painting feels very active to me. The shapes are smaller than I usually paint, and the color changes happen so close together. It feels intense. It takes a different kind of focus to work with the smaller size. 

Interestingly, the concept in Higher Glory was the enormity of GOD's blessing, and I feel like the concept here is the intensity of praise for Him in a 'smaller' parameter. In this morning's Bible reading, I read these words from Psalm 113. 

Psalm 113:1-3 (HCSB)
"Hallelujah!
Give praise, servants of Yahweh;
praise the name of Yahweh.
Let the name of Yahweh be praised
both now and forever.
From the rising of the sun to its setting,
let the name of Yahweh be praised."

Can you feel the intensity of the praise? I love that the word praise is used repeatedly in this translation of the Bible (Holman Christian Standard Bible - one of my favorite translations!). My prayer for this morning is that I will praise GOD in the intensity and smallness of this minute as well as in the overwhelming expanse of life and eternity with Him.