by: Staci Stallings
Life is interesting.
First, back in 2014, my niece, Veronica, started coming every so often to talk about life. She, like many young people today, was trying to figure out college and how to get her feet on the ground. She was working through a lot of internal messaging that had culminated in her getting stuck on paths that were just not working for her. I remember specifically her saying that she wished she could just find a guy, get married, have kids, and everything would be okay.
Yeah. Life doesn’t work that way.
Fast-forward to last August, when by a crazy God-twist, my son’s high school was desperately looking for a math teacher. Veronica lived 9 hours away at the time. Knowing she was looking for work as a teacher, I asked what her specialization was, and lo and behold, she could teach what they were looking for. Forty-eight hours later, she was living with us and teaching at my son’s school.
Over the last year, she has gotten an apartment, finished out the year teaching, gotten a second job as a lifeguard at a pool (her ultimate dream is owning her own pool), and she re-found her love of painting. While she was here, she painted A LOT.
Now painting is not something I’ve ever been around. I always assumed I was bad at art because I couldn’t draw to save my life. I can do stick-figures, but that’s about it. So watching her paint and being around as she painted and got other people to paint was something really new to me.
About the time she moved in, I was working on the books “Making Believe” and “When You Sing a Love Song.” In those books, the lead character, Taylor Grayson begins to be friends with an artist. When she goes to this artist’s house, they either look at paintings or they paint. That, of course, was funny because I have never painted in my life…
The other night, my daughter who is getting married and who is best friends with Veronica, decided to have a painting party with her bridesmaids. They invited me (since it was going to be at my house). I kept telling them that I don’t know how to paint and I’m not good at art.
However, just prior to the party, I randomly found a painter that I fell in love with. As only God can, He tossed this painter’s work onto my Facebook feed, and I was fascinated. His name is Leonid Afremov (afremov.com). When I started looking at his work, I found so many of his paintings that I just loved. They were exactly how I had seen the artist from the book’s work.
That Sunday, I used one of his paintings to try out my art-making skills with paint pens. It was great fun.
When Wednesday came around and it was time to do the painting party, I again tried to get out of it, explaining that I’m not an artist and I’ve never actually painted in my life. Didn’t work.
So I sat down with all of them around a table and I chose another of Afremov’s paintings as my inspiration. As the others talked and laughed and joked, I painted. I wasn’t lying. I had literally never painted in my life other than a couple of paint-by-numbers when I was ten (that I don’t think I ever actually finished). But what I had learned from Veronica was that painting is done in layers, not like paint-by-numbers.
I painted the background first, knowing as I did that it would be covered up almost completely. That was new to me. Before, I wouldn’t have wasted my time on that. But I knew it had to be there in case there were pieces of it later. Then I did the land, which I later found out was snow. Trust me, it didn’t look like any snow I’d ever seen, and if you had told me to paint snow, that’s not how I would have done it.
Over the background, I painted the sunset colors, trying to mimic Afremov’s color choices but often going off-track from that. It was strange how many colors could be in one simple painting.
After that, I started tackling the tree trunks, which was interesting because pre-Veronica, I would have painted them all brown—because tree trunks are brown. But what I’m learning is that your understanding of things often gets in the way of really seeing them. So you think, “Tree trunk. Brown” when what you’re seeing may be gray, brown, mahogany, black… So I didn’t paint them all brown, I painted some browns, some gray, some kind of red, some black.
As I was painting, the others would say, “Wow! That’s really good!” To which I said, “I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t think it’s that great.” I knew, however, that if I stopped, I would talk myself out of finishing it. So I didn’t stop, for hours.
Finally, I worked on the leaves that created the top of the painting. In the painting I was using for inspiration, once again, the “leaves are green” did not hold. They were pink and purple and orange and green… and blue and gray…
I painted and I painted. I painted so long that most of the others ended up doing two paintings in the time I did one.
About three hours after I started, I finally gave up and sat back. Sure, I could have added more colors, but I wasn’t sure I wasn’t messing it up by doing so. I said, “Finished.”
Down the table, my daughter asked to see it. When I showed it to her, she said, “Mom, I don’t think you realize how amazing that really is.” They asked to hold it, so I sent it down that direction. It was about five minutes later that one of them randomly turned it so I could see it from faraway, and WOW!
I had no idea.
It was truly gorgeous!
So now I have a much greater understanding of the painting process for my books, which is very helpful. AND I know that painting is really great (though not relaxing… I had a headache for three days afterward!). Veronica said my brushstrokes are “very timid, like you’re trying not to touch the canvas,” which I would call an absolutely accurate assessment.
All in all, it was an amazing experience!
Okay, dear readers, what is something you dared to do either because you’d read about it or because someone pushed you to try it? Something that turned out way better than you thought it would when you were doing it or before you tried it. I’d love to hear!
A stay-at-home mom with a husband, three kids and a writing addiction on the side, Staci Stallings has numerous titles for readers to choose from. Not content to stay in one genre and write it to death, Staci’s stories run the gamut from young adult to adult, from motivational and inspirational to full-out Christian and back again. Every title is a new adventure! That’s what keeps Staci writing and you reading. Although she lives in Amarillo, Texas and her main career right now is her family, Staci touches the lives of people across the globe with her various Internet and writing endeavors.
Crochet. I still have trouble maintaining proper yarn tension, but I have made some very pretty things. One was a winter sweater jacket for my wife. The stitches were not terribly complex but the result was gorgeous. She got lots of compliments and told everyone that her husband made it for her. We both got tickled about that. :)
I have been knitting for a long time. My mother taught me when I was a child. Just recently I have begun to develop my own knitting patterns. Trial and error at first, but now I have found my rhythm.
Hi Staci! Love today’s blog and can identify with it. As a teacher in the 1980s, I was switching my certification from secondary to elementary and had to take a six week summer art class. The instructor made us have sketch books and each class we brought an object which he arranged on a table and then told us to draw. No lesson, no technique – occasionally he gave individual student tips on shading. Most classes we just drew for two hours. Major headache at the end of each class. Since we used a sketch pad, I was amazed how my techniques improved over the six weeks. So were my boys. With my six year old granddaughter I like to do crafts. Enjoy watching her. Next week we are trying rock painting. Painting is new to me. Bought a kit, but she wants to paint some rocks she found at our local beaches. Been reading articles and watching videos on brushes, paint, and sealer. Will be a learning experience. Best wishes.
I recently made a rag quilt which was new. I sew but watched a video to make it. Your painting is beautiful.
I used to crochet and do embroidery, and I helped Mom make cards. Now, I can no longer crochet, have to be extra careful when I do embroidery, but I love to make my own cards! When I helped Mom when she first started, she liked to emboss the cards, so she’s do all of the stamping and I manned the hair dryer to get the embossing to work. Then, I helped her with colors, and picking out stamps, etc. Now, I do all of the planning of what I want to stamp, colors, etc. I was just thinking last night, I have to start working on Christmas cards soon!! I really like your painting! Congratulations!
That’s so cool, Lincoln! A winter sweater is impressive. I guess I didn’t realize there were different types of stitches in crochet. I think seeing things from afar, it’s easy to miss how much goes into them. What a great memory with you and your wife!
That’s awesome that you can create your own patterns, Mary. I knitted once. My sister-in-law tried to teach me. I got incredibly frustrated trying to make a potholder. Then my other sister-in-law figured out that the one who was trying to teach me was left-handed, and I’m right handed. She was teaching me BACKWARDS for me! I was too frustrated at the time to try again.
I have, however, done a few scarves on one of those round knitting things. Not the same, but it was fun. And finding your rhythm is a great place to be!
My main hobby (after reading) is quilting. My quilt guild was offering a class on drawing on fabric. I’m not artistic in the least. No imagination, no talent. But with step by step directions, I drew a woman’s face on that fabric. It turned out remarkably well. I was amazed. It was supposed to be followed up with quilting on top of the drawing. But alas, it has not (and probably never will be) finished.
I, too, have been playing around with art, just to de-stress and have fun with color. I prefer watercolor pencils. There was a time when I was scared to try anything new, for fear of failing. But when my whole family decided to try martial arts, the instructor asked me if I wanted to learn, too. I was embarrassed, but I tried it. And loved it!
How awesome for you, your discovered something you thought you couldn’t do and you did a Great job! I am a stick drawing person. When my 3 grandchildren come over , I love to do crafts with them and for about the past 4 years we have been painting on rocks and writing nice messages and leaving them on school grounds for the kiddos to find on the first day back to school after summer vacation. Well, I have painted a couple of them and I have been pretty pleased with them. I love to garden and I love planting flowers and when they get to blooming it is always such a wonderful feeling . To me gardening is very relaxing and very rewarding.
Renate,
I love it when we find ways to help kids learn to be creative. I was just talking with some young (college age) friends the other night about how to foster creativity in kids and how too often we as adults crush it out of them. We do not allow their expression, we put our way of doing it onto their imagination–thus crushing their imagination. So important to not do that! Best of luck painting rocks! I bet they will be cherished for forever!
Thank you so much, Lelia. A rag quilt. I’ve never heard of that. I’ve heard of a T-shirt quilt. I’m afraid to tell me daughter to look it up because that will probably be her next project!
Ok so I admit, I always thought it was silly to do those “adult” coloring books…I mean, sure I enjoyed coloring when I was a kid, but as an adult? I was skeptical. Until I got an email one day for 12 free downloadable scripture coloring pages. I thought “why not”, it’s not like I’m going to lose anything. You know how these things go right? Yep, I was hooked from the very first page I colored! I even went so far as to buy a quality set of colored pencils from Amazon. Now I really had all the pretty colors to play around with :-)
I’ve always enjoyed drawing growing up and even took drawing class in high school. So I knew how to shade a picture to make it come alive and look realistic, so taking those skills I learned when I was younger into a coloring page was pretty easy. Though I have to admit, I am a bit rusty yet and I’ve only done pencil drawings so adding color is a bit different. It’s coming back though, kind of like riding a bike does :-)
When you were talking about the painting process where you layer color, I was thinking how God does this to us too. He adds “layers” to us as we follow Him more and more in our lives and learn the kind of lessons He is teaching us. Like when I first gave my heart to Him when I was a young woman. He began to lay the foundation to make my faith strong through teaching, Bible Study and meditating on His word, and now years later, He’s slowly added more and more layers. He’s truly painting a beautiful picture that someday I can look at from far away and see the portrait He has created. Isn’t that a great analogy?
Trudy,
I used to X-stitch when I could see. :) That’s cool about the cards, and I’m sure you created some great memories. So important to learn to create together.
Sherri,
Sometimes there are different definitions of “finished” when it comes to being creative. I have several projects I’ve done over the years that were never “finished,” but maybe they got me where I needed to be and taught me what I needed to learn through them. Interesting concept that I may have to try to fit in somewhere along the way.
When I was in college, I didn’t realize a leadership of a class required a mandatory obstacle course–military course on a base (pre-911). Rope bridges crossing a creek, while crossing upside down, rappelling off a tower (had a practice off the side of the building where our class was taught), and much more.
I did it and passed the class with an A.
I am so touched by this. I love it! Well done, Lincoln!
Lila,
I did paint brush pens first and I enjoyed that. I don’t think I’d be brave enough to try martial arts! Go, Lila!!!
Alicia,
My daughter grows tomatoes and all kinds of things in her bedroom. Me? I can kill a plastic plant. :)
The painted rock thing is really creative. Will be fun for the kids when they find them.
God bless & thanks for stopping by!
Trixi,
I LOVE that! And I can so see how the layers make the person more and more interesting and “deep.”
I have a good friend who started coloring, and she got this round thing to hold all of the colors. She was retired, so she colored all the time. I think it’s a great and very creative pastime.
Denise,
Yowwee! I would have RUN the other direction!!!! But you go, girl! That is awesome!