Every Good Gift

Every Good Gift

"I would want to buy that if I saw it in a gallery," I thought when I saw this painting this morning after finishing it last night. I absolutely love it! This painting is warm, glowing, and it surprises me to think that I painted it. Artist friends, you know how that feels, right? When one just sneaks up on you like that? I have been working on this one for more than a month, including the time while I was doing my daily painting project, and it was going slowly. But suddenly this week, I knew what I wanted to do with it! 

When a painting that is "all one color" (my Beloved Husband would tell me he could color it with just one crayon, or maybe two!), I love to see the "shadow" and "light' in the painting. I was not sure the best way to achieve it on this one, so I spent a lot of time perusing my pinterest board of other artists' work, my daily art boards that I follow, and several contest sites that I participate in to study light and shadow in paintings.

NLA

24" x 48"

Painted with artist quality heavy-body acrylic paint on 1.5” deep gallery wrapped canvas

Click here to purchase via my website.

Have you noticed the strange juxtaposition of normal and "unprecedented" lately? How life seems both radically different and also sort of routine on a daily basis? I don't remember whether I have mentioned this or not, but I have chosen to stop reading social media (mostly) and I quit watching the news years ago. I find that the important information still gets to me, and I don't drive myself to distraction as easily. In this way, I focus less on dark hysteria and more on daily provision from my Heavenly Father. 

What I have been digging into lately is new sources of learning and enlightenment, alongside my daily time spent reading the Bible. I have really delighted in new perspectives, new historical data, new interpretations. (New to me at least!) Certainly the highlights and the most life-changing things have been revisiting the story of the Bible - the setting, the problem, the HERO, the solution. These studies of the Bible have also impacted my understanding of new perspectives on culture and history in the United States. 

I am not sure whether my words about all of this will make sense. Stick with me just a minute longer. As I needed to study and find help on shadow and light for this painting, so I have been studying and finding new resources that bring me back to "the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow."  He has brought me joy, laughter, comfort, peace, understanding (to some extent) during these dark times of global unrest, unhealthiness, and uncertainty. 

James 1:17 Amplified Bible 

Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above; it comes down from the Father of lights [the Creator and Sustainer of the heavens], in whom there is no variation [no rising or setting] or shadow cast by His turning [for He is perfect and never changes].

So in in the midst of darkness and difficulty, one of the gifts He has given me is this bright, cheerful, colorful painting. The layers and layers of color and texture remind me of the layers of struggle and strife that are real, and that impact daily living. But the brilliance of the colors, textures, and light and shadow remind me of the gifts of the Father. The One who can make all things beautiful. The Giver of Every Good Gift.