Picture Stories - Flower Market
- Susan Brenning
- Sep 29, 2021
- 5 min read
Introducing Picture Stories
The journey of honing the gift of painting
A little introduction
Hi, I’m Susan and I’d like to share a little with you about my painting. I started painting in Jr. high and High school and tested several different methods.
For over 10 years, my sister-in-law, her daughter, and I attended a three-day summer painting class at my former workplace, Gullbrannagården.
Before then I had dabbled in oil painting after taking a class for a term in a study circle. After testing acrylics, I soon found that I enjoyed them better as they are water-soluble and easy to clean without strong chemicals. Also, you can make it look like oil with more paint and less water, or like watercolors by using more water.
It is a flexible medium that dries quickly, allowing you to work faster and layer colors without risking bleeding or mixing. If you need the paint to dry slower you can add a Gel Medium (matte or glossy). The gel lengthens the drying time of the paint as well as making the texture more liquid and thinning the paint.
Video Introduction
In the video below I talk freely about a particular attempt at painting with acrylic paint. I have written in more detail, the thoughts I speak of, in the text below.
A parenthesis: Although I am American I have done most of my painting in Sweden. I have learned the painting terms in Swedish and have difficulties finding the right words in English. The word ‘canvas’ escapes me often for example among other words. I leave my language mistakes just for the fun of it. It might give someone a laugh who can understand the difficulties of being bilingual.
Read about Flower Market
A change of pace after 6 years of landscapes
I painted this painting at the 3-day summer course in 2014. The motif is from a Gant magazine. As you can see it is not a landscape. Most of the paintings I have painted are landscapes. After painting landscapes and flowers since 2008, I wanted to try something a little different.
This painting was difficult for me since there was so much detail in the photo. I had to decide on what to bring into the painting and what to leave out. Doing all of the details from the photo in the painting would have been too difficult and time-consuming. Also, it would have distracted from what I wanted to bring out in the photo.
I wanted the flowers in the market to be the main focus. I’m afraid however that the van is what first draws the eye in my rendition.
Another reason that I didn’t put all the details into the painting was that I couldn’t discern from the photo what was in the back of the van. There were things there, I just couldn’t see what they were.
Learning from a past picture story
I realized when I did the Picture Story for Solitary Island that what I thought was a winter motif, wasn't. What I saw as snow and ice on the island was in fact only water reflecting off the rock. So I painted snow for a winter painting but it was actually just a rainy day.
Making sense of it all
With the painting Flower Market, I realized I couldn’t see what was in the back of the van so I decided to empty it. There were a few things in the front and hanging in the window that I saw in the photo and painted in. For the section I couldn't see, I had to use my imagination to make it look natural.
This same thing applied to the wagon in the market. The form of the wagon and some things around it were difficult to see. Also, it was difficult to distinguish between the back tire and the shadow from the wheelhouse or fender. I had to discern how thick the tire was supposed to be and what was only the shadow in order to make it feel balanced. That’s not always easy and I don’t always succeed but I think I did an okay job on this one.
Shed some light on it
Sometimes in life, we don’t know what is ahead of us.
We need to shed some light on the situation. Imagination can sometimes be a help when seeking clarity. This can apply to when we are painting and when we are trying to make sense out of things that we don’t understand.
Our imagination opens our minds to new ideas and possibilities.
I realize that in the same way, you might not know what the cord is that is hanging from my painting. (That you can see in the video) There is a light that makes the painting show up better since it hangs on a dark wall in a corner of my office. So if you are wondering what that is, that is what it is.
But sometimes in life, we don’t know what things are. We can’t see clearly and we don’t know how to approach it.
Should we try and make it clearer or should we try and just take it away and not worry about it? What should we do with this situation in our life? Just as I didn’t know what to do with the section of the painting I couldn’t see clearly enough.
God knows what you are carrying around
I was 56 when I wrote this, and I’ve learned that sometimes God has a plan. Well, He always has a plan but sometimes His plan is not clear to us even though it is always clear to Him. God always knows what’s in the back of the van. He always knows if it’s a rainy day with a water reflection or if it’s snow on an island.
God has no question about those kinds of things. We need to trust in His knowledge and wisdom. Pay attention to what we can see; that which is closer to us, that sticks out, that is obvious because He has already shown it to us. Because we’ve learned about those things in our life already we can rely on the knowledge He has given us. If we concentrate on that then eventually, when the time is right, He will make it clear to us what is hidden in the places and areas that we can’t quite see.
I hope that this can be encouraging to you and your painting as well as in your life and your walk with the Lord.
Sharing Picture Stories
I plan on sharing my paintings and a little story of each here on my website. I hope that somehow, I can inspire you to use the gifts God has given you to spread joy and the knowledge of our Lord, giving others a desire to seek a deeper personal relationship with Him.
Keep in touch
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