The Expanse

"And God said, 'Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.' So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse 'sky.'" - Genesis 1:6-8a

My youngest asked me tonight if I was doing a series on Creation. Actually, that is not my intent. What I'm trying to do is figure out how does one create. Where do you start? And when I ask myself those questions, I can't help but look at the One who created everything for inspiration. On the second day, He separated the waters and created the sky. So this is how I imagine it looks. In my mind it has light. The light separates the waters of the sea from the waters of the air.

Do you create? If you don't, you should. God has put creativity in all our hearts. The first thing we ever read about God doing in the Bible is creating. It's the very first sentence. And if we are made in His image, then I'm pretty sure He has put creativity in all of us. YOU CAN CREATE. You may not be an artist, but you may be a writer, a composer, a gardener, a chef, a builder, a scrapbooker, a designer, or anything else you can imagine. You name it. God has placed something inside you to create.

I pray for you that you will find what He has truly created you to do!

Last night in my reading of The Artist's Way, I read these words:

" Growth is erratic forward movement: two steps forward, one step back......Growth occurs in spurts. You will lie dormant sometimes. Do not be discouraged. Think of it as resting."

Would love to hear your thoughts on this one. Please either respond on my blog (and I have heard from some of you that you can't respond on my blog here) or respond on my Facebook artist page. If you don't "like" my Facebook page yet, you can "like" it by searching Beth Lenderman on Facebook and then liking the search that comes up Artist.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Fireweed

Thinking today about creation and how creation has order. Thinking about background and foreground. And always thinking about COLOR! This is a representation of a photo of Fireweed at a national park in Alaska.

CREATE!

Tonight, I tried something a little different with my painting.

I've been drawn to what my mentor Laurie Justus Pace says...."Learn through imitation but grow through the Spirit inside you." When she says "Spirit," she is referring to the Spirit of God. I took what she has told me and combined it with some of my reading of The Artist's Way. One principle of that book states "Creativity is God's gift to us. Using our creativity is our gift back to God."

I was thinking about all this creativity and what does God want me to do with my art, when I thought, since He is the Great Creator, how about I look at how He goes about creating...how He created the world.

So a few days ago I read  Genesis 1 to see how God got started with all His creativity:

       In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and
       empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over
       the waters. And God said, "Let there be light."

And there it was. I decided to start a creation of a painting thinking about the way God started the creation of the world....the darkness, formless and empty, so dark, so deep....and then LIGHT.

So I created in my mind what the beginning, God's creation, would look like. And in doing so, maybe I have discovered how God wants me to create. Out of nothing.....CREATE!

This is a painting of Old Main, the original building on the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville, Arkansas. I took many photos of the campus this past summer when I took my oldest son to orientation for his freshman year. I then used knife on canvas to create this oil painting of one of the photos I took of Old Main.

Old Main is dear to me because it's at the University of Arkansas. And even though I didn't graduate from there, I still think of this university as my alma mater. I grew up in Arkansas and attended the university two years before I married and moved away. It is the home of the Arkansas Razorbacks, my favorite sports team! Now it is the home of my oldest son, who I just helped move up there this past Wednesday. Many emotions:  I'm proud of him but I miss him like crazy.

I'm looking forward to him singing the alma mater at football games this fall..."Mother of Mothers we sing unto you".....and pointing toward this wonderful building.

GO HOGS!!

Stopping for a few days to take my oldest child off to college. Finished the palm trees. Love the way this is going.

Began this painting at a knife painting workshop this weekend with Laurie Justus Pace. Great seeing her again! Also met and worked beside (and picked her brain) professional fine artist Sheri Jones who is also an amazing knife painter.

When I first started this painting I had huge pieces of paint applied with my knife....almost an abstract look with cubes of paint in sections. I have since begun to rework the paint, especially in the sky and sand. Still not sure if my beach is finished. The last thing I worked on today is the trunks of the palm trees which I LOVE! I loaded the side of my knife with Brown Pink and dragged it across Titanium White to create the look of bark. LOVE THE KNIFE!

Can't wait to see how this painting turns out!

GRACE....REVISITED

(Above is a painting I created for one of my sisters. She had taken a photo of a calf on her farm. I painted this from her photo and had a little fun with the calf's coloring.)

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog about GRACE in a construction zone. I guess I sort of unofficially challenged you to try to extend grace to others. I'm wondering how that's going for you?

Today I was driving home in traffic in that same construction zone. I am proud to say that I let not one, not two, not three, not four but FIVE people in line ahead of me....the people who sped ahead of all the others in line behind me to beat them out to get a primo spot at the head of the line. (I should mention that I also came that way a few days ago and let two people in ahead of me.) I'm not telling you that I've done this to toot my own horn; rather, to be accountable and do something that I know God was asking me to do.

Anyway, I found it interesting that as I let in two people at once, the guy behind me blared on his horn. Now, maybe he was just honking to the tune of a song or honking at some friends, or maybe he was irritated that I was letting two people cut. I'm not sure. But it occurred to me....if he was irritated at my offer of grace, isn't that just like us? We might see others or even God extending grace to someone who we deem inappropriate to receive it and we blare on our horn and get irritated. I have been that guy behind me who blared on the horn. Well, maybe I didn't blare my horn but I sure have wanted to at people who were "undeserving" of grace.

And then I also noticed that one of the people I let in front of me actually pulled halfway over so that their car was taking up a little bit of both lanes making it impossible for anyone to pass. So although this person was offered grace, they did not want to extend it to others.

Sad to say, I have been that person too.

Anyway, I would love to hear your comments on this if any of you tried to extend some grace. You can post them on here or email me at bethlendermanfineart@gmail.com.

In the meantime....."Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." 2 Corinthians 1:2 NAS

As I began to get back into my art, my creativity, I spent a couple of days with a famous contemporary artist who urged me to trust myself, trust my work. What a difficult thing to do. But it’s something I am working on. She urged me to trust God and what He is doing in me through my art.

What a concept.

That’s not always easy in something as simple as art, and not easy at all in something as complex as life. But in some ways I feel like I am learning to trust Him more since I have delved back into my art. Maybe it’s because I’ve felt Him pulling me back to painting over and over again as I look back across the events of my life. Seems like recently things have fallen into place for it to finally happen. However, things have also happened since I’ve started earnestly pursuing my art to make it even more difficult to occur.

 Which makes me want to fight for it even more.

"God, I will take care of the quantity. You take care of the quality."   Paraphrase of The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

Perspective

Perspective can be defined as “a visible scene” or “the state of one's ideas, the facts known to one, etc., in having a meaningful interrelationship.”

I enjoy painting objects from a different perspective. I might see an animal, such as the Siamese cat in the painting above, and focus on the part of that animal that intrigues me...such as the incredible blue eyes.  I like the idea of of focusing on one part of a subject, such as the eyes above, drawing attention to that part and in some way, discovering that subject again for the first time. I find it interesting to see objects from different angles and even take a different point of view from how others see it.

Sometimes I need to apply this to other areas of my life, especially when dealing with people. To truly understand someone, you must try to understand things from their perspective...see things from their point of view. In doing so, maybe you can discover something beautiful about them too.