art – Prayers and Paintbrushes

Some of My Favorites 🎨 Paintings of Hope

I’ve been painting with watercolors since Christmas 2015 when I decided I’d experiment with the process. I’m still experimenting, to be honest! People have asked me to teach them to paint. I wouldn’t know where to start! Each painting I do I find I am still learning more. I imagine that’s how the creative process works.

I love to play piano and to sing. Music and art are both different sides of the same coin of creativity. I can remember telling someone that as I’d stand and sing before a congregation of people, I had the sense I was speaking an emotional heavenly language to one person. By that I mean, each person received it themselves and the person next to them, the same. It was a powerful realization that maybe that is similar to how Jesus reaches us – all of us in real time receiving what He has uniquely for us. Yes, of course I have no clue about that imagining, but it struck me as MY way of understanding the power of Jesus to the world, one person at a time.

One of my favorite authors, Jan Karon the writer of the WONDERFUL Mitford series of books wrote**, “Something out of nothing. Isn’t that the very crux of the creative process? Isn’t that, in the end, one of the great keys to living!” **the Mitford Bedside Companion, Jan Karon. As I take a blank piece of white paper, some clean water, a handful of paintbrushes, and paints I endeavor to create a representation of something that SAYS something without words. As singing speaks melody and the piano speaks without words, paintings create an emotional reaction. They tell a story that you, the viewer, understand individually from your own perspective.

So I invite you, from your unique perspective. to take a watercolor journey and hopefully find some peace and a measure of hope as you see from a different viewpoint. I can’t impact but one person at a time. But I pray that, should this encourage you, you would share with one other person to brighten their day.

PRAYERS✨ and PAINTBRUSHES🎨

The name for my “businesstry” came to me when it occurred to me that I should give my business/ministry a name. I breathed a prayer and it came to me like a whisper from God! I nodded my head and said, Thank You, Lord. I like it! And thus Prayers and Paintbrushes was born in 2015.

Surprisingly I did a lot of commission paintings in the first 3 years I was painting but lately I’ve done more small paintings as cards to bless people I care about. I decided to use my “Desert at Dusk” painting as a featured image for my blog. It reminds me of the incredible beauty of an Arizona sunset. I thought I would change things up a bit and see how it will look. Along with this desert theme, I share a couple of my other Arizona favorites below. There are MANY more in my Arizona Dreaming Collection:

The “Prayers” part of my businesstry name originally made me smile, as I’d begin a painting saying, “Oh Lord, please don’t let me screw this up!” And amazingly, I felt He has honored my requests. I learned a long time ago to trust God in everything. He is faithful in the simple things and in the hard places. Prayer to me is spending time, having a conversation, unburdening my soul, and just giving to God what I can’t handle. Sometimes I just sit with my hands open and palms up and ask the Holy Spirit to come join me. I trust the Spirit to make sense of the jumble that is my mind and bring glory to God as I worship Him.

Prayers and Paintbrushes has brought me on a journey I never could have dreamed! It is apparent to me that this was the Lord’s plan for this season of my life. And it is a heartfelt prayer that sharing my heart is as important as sharing my art. I want my life to count for eternity hopefully impacting someone else’s heart for Jesus. Faith is a GIFT and I am grateful beyond words that I know and trust Jesus as my Savior. And I pray that for you as well.

…For the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23

Praying you find HOPE and TRUST in God’s free GIFT to you of HIMSELF. What costs you nothing cost Him everything ~ and reaps you the blessings of eternity.

Praying you find PEACE in the midst of the chaos of our world by sitting at His feet and seeking His presence.

Praying you find JESUS. Just ask Him to reveal Himself to you! Ask Him to forgive you, to give you a new life, and to go before you.

And He WILL.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. The words of Jesus recorded in Matthew 7:7.

Sharing My Gallery – ARIZONA DREAMING

Above are just some of the 67 images I have painted in the Gallery I call Arizona Dreaming. Click on the link to see more. I love my adopted home state and I invite you to see how any of these might look in your home as a framed print, a throw pillow, on a coffee mug, towel, card, notebook – on and on it goes. Come back again to see more. Thank you for sharing with your friends!

Finding Purpose in Your Now

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭43:18-19‬ ‭NIV‬‬

What a POWERFUL statement the prophet Isaiah made so long ago – Forget the former things – do not dwell on the past. As our Pastor Chad Moore said, we can’t move in any direction except forward. We are only able to LIVE in the present. When we are stuck looking behind us at the “if only’s” or trying to imagine the “what ifs,” we lose sight of what actually IS going on in our lives in the present. And the Lord said He is making a way of renewal and revival for us in this time. So take hold of those words of encouragement and truth and hang on for the ride!

Happy New Year to you who took the time to stop in and connect. Thank you for that gift! And I pray a blessing of renewal over you as you begin this new year. Keep your eyes and your heart open for signs that the Lord is guiding and gifting you. His blessings come in many forms. No one is exempt from His great redeeming love and matchless grace. . .regardless of what you’ve done, where you’ve been, or what’s been done to you.

Take WING in this new month/new year and seek ways you can be blessed to be a blessing to a friend or a stranger, a family member or even a FB member. 😄 Someone needs something you have that likely costs nothing to give that may completely turn their day or even life around. Help us Lord, to be Your hands and feet in this chaotic and often discouraging world. Truth CAN be found in You and Your Word. And that is where I seek my direction.

“If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”
‭‭ Psalms‬ ‭139:9-10‬ ‭NIV‬‬

SURPRISED by JOY!

Christmas has come to my Fine Art America website and ALL my nearly 300 paintings can be purchased as 1/2” thick wooden ornaments approximately 4×4” in SIX DIFFERENT SHAPES: stars, ovals, bells, hearts, trees, and stockings! Each ornament includes a string for hanging on a tree and a magnet on the back for use on a refrigerator. I was truly surprised by joy!

WHERE ARE the ornaments? Look up top under HOME DECOR, then HOLIDAY ORNAMENTS. Here is a link. There truly is something for everyone. Be sure to use SLIDER BAR to adjust the size of the image! Please message me if you have any questions.

There are no container ships involved in this process, so if you order soon, you will have these to decorate your tree and gift to your friends.🎄

Thankful to share with you🎨