Watercolor Fern {or how to make a blown egg}

I have a collection of watercolor eggs that has slowly grown over the years. This year I painted a fern egg to add to the lot. These are blown eggs--the whites and yolks have been removed. 

Although they are quite fragile, blown eggs will last for years if treated gently.

If you've never blown an egg before, it's easy to learn! 

Use a needle or safety pin to poke a hole in the top and bottom of the egg.

Make sure the hole is 1/8 inch or so in diameter. 

If you are having trouble getting the whites and yolk out, make the bottom hole a little bigger.

 (No, I'm not losing my dinner.)

Then gently (but with quite a bit of force) blow through the top hole. 

The contents of the egg will pour out the bottom. Now you can make scrambled eggs! 

Rinse the egg shell and let it dry thoroughly. Then paint, sketch, dye, create!

 

Happy Easter!

Green Gallery Wall {a study in landscape}

My living room has been a slow work in progress ever since we moved in to this house seven years ago.  We've experimented with a few different rugs, replaced old furniture, added a new (old) chandelier, painted the walls white, and I've tweaked and shifted things around almost daily. 

(That's one of my gifts weaknesses--don't judge!)

I recently redesigned the one big boring wall in the room by creating a gallery wall of original art. Four of the paintings are mine (three oil and one watercolor) and one painting I bought on ebay.

 The composition of the paintings on the wall was tough to figure out. After lots of unsuccessful experimenting with the four oil paintings, I realized I needed one more little one, so I rummaged around in my stash and found the watercolor which I had painted years ago.

I traced the shape of each frame on brown packing paper and cut them out to use as templates on the wall.

Once I decided on the composition, I taped them up to make sure I liked how they were centered and how they filled the space.  Then Scott and I hung the frames with a few minor adjustments and came up with this ~

 The painting on the top left is the watercolor I painted in college. It's a landscape from a photo I took in the mountains outside of Quito, Equador. The top middle is an oil I did a few months ago from a shot I took this summer while we were vacationing on the Oregon coast. The painting on the top right was done in college as well, a study of a Van Gogh. I painted the one on the bottom right a few years ago for an art show at our church.

They are tied together through color and theme, but vary a bit in style. I like gallery walls that are more random, too, but I'm loving the repeated green fields and ocean imagery in this collection.
I think it brightens up the room, and the added height and gold accents relate to the chandelier and make the room feel a little bigger to me.

Pretty Plate Wall {high impact ~ low risk}

 When I was visiting my sister, Carrie, this fall we were inspired to jazz up her kinda-boring kitchen 

with a plate wall. I'd been wanting to try one for a while, but I've run out of wall space at my house. 

Carrie was up for some low-risk (inexpensive) decorating, so we had a great time throwing this together.

What you will need:

10-15 plates (or more?) - All of these were already owned or cost around $2 - $5 or so.
plate hangers - We used the wire ones you can get at hardware stores.
butcher paper
a digital camera
hammer and nails



How we did it:

1. We started by collecting plates. Carrie had six of these plates already, but we went to Marshall's and Home Goods to pick up the rest. We were looking for a combination of bright, bold colors, lots of texture, and a mixture of patterns and solids. (You should check out all the plate walls on Pinterest to figure out what colors and styles you like.)

 (one of our earlier layouts)

2. We played around with the composition on the floor. I'd take a picture when the layout seemed close, then tweak it a little more, take a pic, compare, tweak, pic, etc., until we settled on a composition we liked. 

3. This step could be combined with two to simplify things, but we were putting this together over a few days time so we separated the steps. I measured the space we wanted to fill on the wall, then rolled out a length of butcher paper in the same dimensions on the floor. Using the picture I'd taken as a guide, I set the plates out in the composition we'd chosen. Then I traced around each plate, drawing circles on the paper to create a template. Once that was finished I taped the paper template to the kitchen wall.

4. I chose a plate to start with (it doesn't matter which one). First, I attached the plate holder to the back. Then I held it up to the corresponding circle on the template and marked where the nail should go. (I continued using the picture on my camera as a guide.) Then I nailed right through the paper and hung the plate. I repeated that process until all the plates were hung, but the paper was still taped to the wall with nails poking through it. Finally, I took all the plates off the wall, tore off the paper (leaving the nails in all the right places, of course) and re-hung the plates.
 

Pretty jazzy, right? Well, just in the last hours before I left to return home I was hit by a second wave of inspiration ~ that old IKEA table was calling out for a quick and easy update. 

But, alas, I had run out of time.

So when I went back last weekend (to visit my sweet new little cuddly nephew) I hit the ground running 

with a plan. I lightly sanded the table, painted it green and did a few coats of wipe-on polyurethane 

on the first day. The next day I applied another coat of polyurethane to the top with a brush. 

(I wanted to be sure to get a good strong top coat since the table gets such constant use.)

The next day it was finished in all its bright, spring-green, freshness.

 I love how Carrie's kitchen turned out and it was so fun and easy to do.

If you're contemplating an inexpensive, high-impact change--I say go for it!

What do you have to lose?

Move along, nothing to see here... {thoughts on art in the sanctuary}

 What helps you to meditate on truth?

In what environment are you most receptive to the means of grace?

How can what you see with your eye encourage your heart and mind to see?

 

The good news is, well, it's actually the Good News! 

It doesn't depend on us, on our faculties for attention, 

on our access to excellent environments for worship. 

It does depend on our hearing, on God's enabling us to receive his grace 

through the means which he has given.

A few weeks ago I was asked to design something to hang in the space behind the pulpit 

at our church, framing the cross, facing the congregation of the saints. 

I'm sure I overthink these things, and honestly that might normally prevent me 

from producing anything at all. But, since the time frame between being asked for a design 

and getting started on the project was around 24 hours, 

with the deadline for completion in less than a week, 

I had to move quickly and my thinking-creating-evaluating process was severely truncated.

In considering the environment, the physical context for the gathering of the church, 

for the hearing of the Word by the people of God 

I wanted to create something that, in a sense, people wouldn't see. 

Well, yes, I know they see it, but I hoped it would not call attention to itself, 

not become a distraction to those who are hearing and worshiping.

And yet, maybe subtly it could draw the eye and the heart and the mind toward Christ. 

I envisioned something rough, something ordinary, unpolished, even broken. 

I thought about vertical lines sweeping upward and about 

muddy, dark and dingy things becoming lighter and brighter.

We used ordinary, cheap, scrap wood shims, broken, battered, and discolored 

with various drab shades of paint, oriented in a vertical pattern almost imperceptibly graduating 

from a slightly darker to lighter shade of distressed, weathered wood.

I'm still not sure these panels achieve (or under-achieve) all I envision art in the worship setting should, but they're up, and they're messy, and they point heavenward. I guess I'm hopeful that we broken believers, as we gather to worship, would do the same.

--::--

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 

by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, 

that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 

let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, 

with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.  

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.  

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,  

not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, 

but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Hebrews 10:19-25