"He wrote His song into everything..."

I finished the three-part picture this week! Here it is: 

The three panels were in different parts of the book, and while I used the same pens, pencils, and crayons throughout, isn't it interesting how different the colors look? Maybe it tells a story of the variations in my strength and mood from day to day...? Anyway, it's far from perfect, but it brought me a lot of joy as I did it.

Here is the original painting, by Thomas Kinkade:

Wow! Isn't that stunning? I have no idea how he made the fireflies glow or the water sparkle like that, but I love it!

My favorite thing about this picture, though, is how musical it is. From the seagull squawking away, to the frogs popping out of the pelicans' bills and riding the boat oar, to the flamingos doing three-part harmony, to the ducks playing on turtles like bongos... not to mention the whistle of the breeze through the willows, the soprano trill of the water cascading down the rocks, and the rippling melody of the waves touching the boat... and anyone who has a romantic nerve in their being can hear that moon sing a lullaby in operatic tenor! The whole image is motion and rhythm and tune and life.

And just as my coloring art is an imperfect imitation of a fabulous painting, so is the painting a dim reflection of the world God has created... where every heart and every thing was truly born with a song it was made to sing. What is the song that you hear?

Listening to: "Sing," by Ellie Holcomb

Dramatic waves of Crayola

My favorite thing about using crayons is the names of the colors! Unlike the unimaginative names given to colors in cross-stitching (see previous post), a Crayola box is full of fun and inspiring names, and sometimes I get distracted by just reading all the labels.

I used five crayons to color the lagoon: pacific blue, sea green, blue-green, cerulean, and indigo. I wanted to give some movement to the water, so I colored in broad strokes that arched in different ways. Then I smoothed over it with short horizontal strokes. I'm not sure it came out the way I thought it would, but I'm happy with it:

Center panel of "The Little Mermaid II"

The thing about broad, arching strokes is that they make me feel very dramatic and I get a bit carried away. If you look closely, you'll see the blue crossed many lines that it probably shouldn't have, and tinted the boat, the hair, the clothes, the flowers in less than professional ways. But I was coloring to the rhythm of the song "How He Loves Us" (linked below), and at the time it felt just fine and even now, I have no regrets.

I was thinking of the love of God, which is like a hurricane on the sea, fierce and awesome... taking our steady hearts and boring lives and stirring them up with such power that we get carried away and turned violently into something new and unrecognizable.

And I was thinking of His grace, which is like an ocean that sinks all of us who dare to enter into it... so much deeper and wider and infinite than we could ever image, and it never runs dry but springs fresh and new every morning to cleanse and restore us, and drown us.

And I was thinking of how heaven meets earth in a "sloppy wet kiss"... when God walked in the garden, when Jesus wrapped himself in baby-soft skin, when the Holy Spirit crash-landed like fire on the heads of the saints, and whenever we slow down enough to observe his hands move and listen to his voice sing over us.

So I color in broad strokes, in arches, and in layers, and I get "pacific ocean water" all over the page, because it reminds me of the incredible and reckless love of God.

Listening to: "How He Loves Us," by John Mark McMillan

Grace-filled Layers

My nephew was visiting us recently, and he loves coloring as much as I do, so we colored together quite a bit. He likes using colored pencils, and between the two of us we have quite a selection - four boxes full! I really enjoyed sharing this time with him, with pencils and paper spread out all around us. I was pretty impressed with his eye for color, too - he is very specific about the colors he uses, and how they mix with or compliment each other, and he always chooses them perfectly. 

Colored pencils are not my favorite medium to work with, because I can't bear down very hard, and it takes a lot of pressure for the colors to be vibrant. But here's something I realized as I colored with my nephew: colored pencils are full of grace. Because I don't make dark marks, it doesn't matter so much if I go out of the lines a little; I can always erase or color back over my mistakes with other pencils. It also doesn't matter much if I accidentally use the wrong shade; I can just blend another color over it.

And then I realized something else: if I shade multiple layers with multiple pencils on the same spot, the color becomes more full and vibrant! 

The left panel of "The Little Mermaid II"

And anyway, if you really look closely at a rock or leaf (in real life), they aren't one solid color of gray or green, are they? They have depth and dimension, light and shadow, and a million particles that make them unique and beautiful. So, my grass has three colors blended in, my rocks have four colors, and my hanging vines and branches have five colors. And yes, it took quite a while to get it finished and looking the way I wanted. With the first layer, I thought it looked ok - with the second layer, I thought it looked better... and with every additional layer, I liked it more and more. 

So colored pencils remind me of the grace of God... quick to forgive, erase, and cover over my sins. From the fullness of his love, we receive grace upon grace (John 1:16). And with every layer of his grace, my life becomes more beautiful, more enriched, a more complete depiction of his love. 

Listening to: "Grace Upon Grace," by Josh Wilson

Composing, Conducting, and Coloring

Summer is finally here! I was outside today, enjoying the sunshine and blue sky and some of my favorite summer songs. Near the top of my list is the ENTIRE soundtrack to The Little Mermaid. So my current artsy-type project is in honor of that:  

Right panel of "The Little Mermaid II"

I have a coloring book of Disney scenes that were painted by Thomas Kinkade - much like the cross-stitch I did this spring. The thing I love about these pictures is that they are actually divided into three panels. So the image you see above is the far right side of the painting, and there are two other pages that complete it. I'm working on coloring all three at the same time, as my early-summer project.

I've decided to use three mediums: pens, pencils, and crayons. So you can see I've outlined the whole picture with thin pens, and I've started to fill in parts of it with colored pencils. My plan is to use several blue crayons for the lagoon water, to give it another dimension. We'll see how it turns out!

Outlining is tedious, but I love the effect it gives, don't you? It reminds me of the "percussion" that Sabastian begins his concert with, a simple baseline. I like the way he is perched on a rock in a waterfall, conducting the sounds of nature to create the mood and rhythm of the whole scene. And do you see his smile and the joy in his eyes? That reminds me of my Creator, and the expression He surely had on his face as he created stars and starfish, plants and planets.

I think He must have taken incredible joy and pride in everything he created with just a spoken word. I wonder if He held up his hands and conducted as birds and frogs and whales found their voices, as the wind played on reeds, and waves crashed together, and the leaves and branches whispered in mighty trees. I wonder if He closed his eyes as he carefully tuned the cricket's wings and the river's current. He decorated lagoons to be romantic, he designed canyons to take our breath away, and he made the hills come alive with the sound of music.

What a composer, what an artist He is!

Currently listening to "So Will I (100 Billion X)"