Carnelian

Carnelian

"I think it is time to get on Instagram," I thought to myself. I listen regularly to an art marketing podcast called Artists Helping Artists, and they have been promoting Instagram for artists to use in our online presence for quite a while. I just hadn't decided to jump on yet... maybe this will be the day.

Part of piece called Foundation Stones
6" x 6" acrylic on canvas panel 
ready to frame   

My studio has been busy today, as I have been preparing some handcrafted cradled panels with gesso for a large diptych I am hoping to paint, cleaning brushes, and working on this and other paintings. Carnelian is still part of the series I started with the 30 paintings in 30 days challenge - stones mentioned in the Bible. This one has a lot of iridescence in it as I try to represent an agate-like red stone. (see link at the end of the blog post for a reference photo) Today it was nice to have a theme to keep me painting. No blank canvas freeze, so to speak. 

In our country this day and this year, I feel like I need a plan - a direction - to keep me from freezing up in my daily life, too. Our election this coming month is hanging over all of our heads, I think, and there are so many other things in the daily news to draw me/us to a distracted inability to function well. I want to follow a daily, step-by-step direction for my own life, too, and I have found my help in daily Bible reading and focus on My Redeemer. 

Matthew 6:32 - 34 (NASB) "...for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Revelation 21:10-21 (Holman Christian Standard Bible)
"10 He then carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, 11 arrayed with God’s glory. Her radiance was like a very precious stone, ...
19 The foundations of the city wall were adorned with every kind of precious stone:
the first foundation jasper,
the second sapphire,
the third chalcedony,
the fourth emerald,
20 the fifth sardonyx,
the sixth carnelian,(sardius)
the seventh chrysolite,
the eighth beryl,
the ninth topaz,
the tenth chrysoprase,
the eleventh jacinth,
the twelfth amethyst..."

Reference photo for carnelian