New Painting

Oh yes...is there anything I really need to say here? My first self portrait done in a painting. I think it was quite appropriate that I chose to depict me in 80's fashion, since I am in fact a child of 80's. And the fact that I look absolutely ridiculous here makes it so much better. I actually finished this painting very quickly, in about 8hrs. This may seem like a long time, but I normally spend at least 20hrs per painting. I would have done much more detail work on this painting if I could have, but I am still very pleased with how it turned out.Kathryn and I with my ridiculous portrait.
We had my Dad and Sister at our house this weekend. We had Chuck, Ginger, Ruby, John, and Phillip over for dinner on Sat night. It was so much fun and the food was delicious. Above is a picture of Dad and John...I think they dressed to match.

Suzanne and Ginger

Kathryn, Me, Phillip
Me, Phillip, Suzanne
And after dinner, Ahhhhh.....Hammock Time. So very nice.
Well, it was until Phillip and I fell out of the Hammock. We all had a good laugh over that one.

What Now?

So life if busy, to say the least. I am working two jobs, leading a home group, serving at the church, working on two paintings, dating, trying to have some semblance of a social life with my girl friends, doing recovery at the Village, and keeping my house clean. Busy yes, but manageable. Now comes the problem. I start school in two weeks, and it's going to be a tough semester.  How do I do all that I am doing and add school in there? Well, I have no idea.  I'll be done with recovery at the end of September and I'll have to stop painting for a few months. I may have one job, or two. I'm still working on that one. Either way, I still have to work a lot. 

The Lord has put a desire in my heart to be a working Artist. I have had this desire for a while now, with really no idea of how to achieve that. Over this past year, the Lord has thrown so many opportunities and wisdom and advice my way. It has been so encouraging. So now I know what to do, but where do I find the time to pursue those things? If I do all of it now, like I need to, I may kill myself. But if I wait until after I graduate, I may be homeless.  Which could kind of be cool. I would help my starving artist look and I would have truly suffered, and thus could make magnificent, meaningful art finally....Or something like that. I want to take every opportunity that the Lord has provided for me. I want to chase the desires of my heart. But at the sacrifice of what?

Well kids, here is the moral of this story is that I have to choose between good things and necessary things. There will be much prayer in this decision as well as a lot of seeking the Lord's face to find out his will in this.  I admit that I have no idea how to deal with this. I need to Lord. I need him to show me his will, to guide me here. I am praying that he will make those things clear to me. I would appreciate your prayers in this. Thanks for listening.

Oh and I will be posting more picture of the paintings I am working on as soon as I have a free minute at home when I'm not sleeping.

Finally an Update

I am again sorry that I have left you to wonder what my painting must look like now. I have been painting when I can. But mostly I have been crazy busy. Every time I could use Suzanne's computer to upload pics, I was gone. Every time I was home to upload pics, she was working on her computer. It kinda put a kink in things. So I am now staying up late to update you. You should feel very special...because I am tired.
Okay... So here starts the new progression. I'm not going to explain all of these. Pretty self explanatory I think.





There it is. I know it's kind of freaky just having a floating head there and all. I have to finish the stamping before I can do anymore of the painting, because the stamp overlaps onto the canvas I need to paint. So I have to be able to paint over the stamps for it to make sense. I am liking the stamping more now. I think I may cover all the color and just do black and white now. Still working on the idea, but I'm very happy that it may be salvageable. I am so thrilled with how well the face turned out. Every time I sat down to paint I was frustrated at the way a certain feature ended up. But as always, I left it as it was to look at later. I still can't believe that I painted this. God is so good to give me the ability to do this. I am always so blown away by it. I am really excited to get more done. Hopefully I will have a lot of time to paint this weekend, but the weekend is already filling up. I need a vacation! Anyways, let me know what you think. I love getting the feedback.