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 Sun in Winter Landscape
Painting an embellished sun
Today I am sharing with you the painting I call Sun in a Winter Landscape. I painted it in 2019 during the last time I attended the course at Gullbrannagården. Some of my better paintings were from that time.
I finished this painting at home because I wasn’t satisfied with it. The sun was very difficult to paint. Find out how my attempt with the method Bob Ross teaches went in the picture story I made called Inspired by Bob Ross.
Attempting to paint a similar sun on my Bob Ross-inspired painting was a failure. I realized I had made the sun too large. The same thing I did on my painting from 2019.
This time I went back to the original which is a postcard and measured the sun in comparison to the picture. I did the same with my rendition and sun.
To make it look better and more like the original I need to greatly reduce the size of my sun. Notice the pencil marking the size that the whitest section should be.
Sun and the way it should be
That’s what I ended up doing with the painting I did in 2019. I should have remembered that but memory is short. The rest of the painting is snow and reeds coming up through ice on the iced-over lake.
Details of Sun in Winter Landscape
It was interesting working on the sun reflecting off the snow and ice, to actually show that it is ice and snow and not just snow-covered land. It was a challenge, but I think I did an okay job. By adding water to the paint it made the look of ice reflections.
Embellishment
The challenge with using a postcard or photo as an original is that suns like these are embellished. Embellishments are not easy to paint because they aren’t true to nature. It is embellished.
What I’ve learned from that is that there are a lot of things in life that we can’t make look natural or make happen naturally in us. Things like balance. Often, we make things too large, too small, too bright, or too dark.
Focus without getting lost
For me when I’m working on something, I’m in the moment, I’m doing only that at that time and that is where my focus is.
That makes everything else around me disappear. I can get lost in that focus and end up missing things I should be doing or prioritizing.
Right now, (at the time I made this video) I’m working on getting my next book ready to send to my editor. My book is scheduled to be released by Easter 2022 in only a few months. That’s where a lot of my focus is, which means that many other things are falling behind.
Refreshing Fellowship and Worship
This past Saturday our church had an evening of fellowship with other churches, their pastor’s and wives (or in one case the pastor and her husband). I was there as a pastor’s wife with my husband.
The fellowship felt like the sun being embellished in my life. I really needed it. I needed the rest, prayer, worship, and focus on my Lord instead of focusing on all the work and all the things I needed to do.
It refreshed me, my spirit, and my soul. Those are moments that I need to make room for in my life. If I make them too big, I don’t get anything else done.
I need to get other things done as well because God has given me gifts, responsibilities, and desires in my heart: painting, writing, singing, and fellowshipping. These things all need a place in my life and my heart.
The Embellished Life of Worship
Need for fellowship and worship
But if I don’t have the embellished life of a worshiper of my Lord Jesus Christ, then the painting is imbalanced, my life is imbalanced.
I need to find that balance. Find the joy, the light, and uplifting that comes from fellowship and worship to make the cold winter and darkness that surround me at times to be brightened and lifted up.
I hope you will also be able to find those moments of winter sunshine shining through the dark and cold so that you as well can feel uplifted and refreshed.
God bless you.
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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