Art is about what is REALLY THERE, NOT WHAT you think you see.

I am a #watercolorist mostly.

If you really want to define me I paint in #mixedmedia using watercolor, charcoal, and metal leafing. I love the bright saturated colors of watercolor and love the gesture and lost and found lines of watercolor.

I have always been fairly conservative. I drew because, well I liked to draw. I enjoyed telling stories through my art. I would make books, doodle fashion designs, illustrate fairies and draw horses.

I drew the way I wanted to see the world.

I still do that.

In college, I did more #realism. I had my first successes drawing from life. I "mastered" #pencilrenderings. I drew still-lifes that had texture, depth, and parts of shadow that I had, before then, never seen.

I learned an important lesson. Art is about #OBSERVATION.

It is about seeing what is REALLY THERE, not what YOU THINK YOU KNOW.

Still Life completed in 2006

Isn't that how life is?

You think you know what is really going on and then you find out the TRUTH?

And the TRUTH is not what you thought?

I am awakened in this way, a lot. Sometimes, I think too often.

It gives me a flair for the dramatic (or so my husband says). Not in the outside, extroverted kind of way, but in the emotional, raw, "What am I doing with my life?!" kind of way.

#youfeelme?

My point is, I get really obsessed with things being perfect.

Not in all parts of my life....

Laundry...BOMB

Dishes....BOMB

Housework in general....BOMB

But my drawings and paintings...I tend to take things too far and I mess them up. It makes it difficult to begin.

Then in college, I went for it. I was asked to be in a photoshoot for some paintings, which was really outside my comfort zone. I was given some of the photos from the shoot and I went for it. The watercolor class so far that semester was ok, but it definitely was not my medium of choice.

Isn't it true that when we get uncomfortable that we grow?

I painted this:

It was a mixed media piece.

I loved the process. It was freeing. Watercolor became the medium of happy accidents and I just keep moving, even when I made mistakes.

But it wasn't perfect. It was a little sloppy and had some drawing errors that I couldn't let go of.

So I stopped, and I because I needed to draw I went back to renderings. And although they were accurate, they didn't hold any life.

It wasn't until after I was married that my husband asked me to revisit that style of my self-portrait.

So I did and I painted this:

My version of the virgin Mary

And then I painted this:

"Waiting on the Carpenter"

To be honest, I surprised myself. Have you ever done that?

I honestly don't say this to boast because I know that there are a lot of people who are incredibly talented and more talented then me and that is ok with me.

I say it because I want to illustrate the point that...

I felt like it wasn't just me behind the paintbrush.

It wasn't something I thought I was capable of. How am I ever going to be perfect?

The answer we all know perfectly well-we aren't.

But we can be enough

Even though when I look with my eyes I see limitations I can try to look through God's eyes and see the potential He see in me. #Helives #grateful

Because what is REALLY THERE and what WE THINK WE SEE are very different things.

Because even though I may not be the best at writing, painting or speaking or LIFE. I can do my best and I can keep learning.

More about Waiting on the Carpenter in the next post.