Transition time

For those who have had a new member added to your family, you know that there are challenges with the blessings as you adjust to another person in your house.  It might be a new spouse, step-children, a new baby, an elderly parent, or even a new puppy, that can bring new challenges.   There's always a transition time, where your life it's quite the same as it was prior to that person coming to your home.  In our case, it's a foster child and a new puppy.  Actually, the puppy doesn't change our schedule and all much, but he is a challenge, that's for sure. :-) Bringing a child that's been in foster care and has trauma issues, is a little added
stress to the mix.  Even though you are so excited to have a new child, working with them through fear, anxiety, behavior issues and all is not.   So, needless to say, my painting days have been few; my alone time, scarce; my desire to get away hightened. :-)   It's a time to walk closely with the Lord to know what to
do when your new child is going through some fear, a time of grief, or just shuts down for no apparent reason.  Help Lord!

Downpour of blessings

This new painting is called "Downpour of blessings".   My husband and I have been trying to adopt another child for about five years.  We now have a very promising opportunity with the foster child we now have in our home.  Because God is really blessing things in our life right now, it has inspired me to paint this new piece. This painting is quite a bit different than most I do, even though it has a lot of texture, which is a common element in my paintings. 

Workshop

Saturday was my first "real" workshop to teach.  I've only taught a class
for children before.  This workshop was so much fun for me and I can't
wait to do another one.  I think everyone had a good time as well, or so they said.

 

.

The BIG day is almost here!

Tomorrow is the BIG day!  We get the four year old little girl to join our family.  Hopefully, it
will be forever.  I have to say that we had two children placed in our home a year ago and
it was a bit of a nightmare.  So, I've been a bit gun shy this time knowing a lot more clearly what
we've signed up for than I did in the past.  I am getting excited.  We've seen her twice now and I
think that will help in making the transition a little easier. 

On a different note, here's the painting I finally finished after posting previously the beginning stages.

It's from Psalms 1: 1-3.  I love this verse and had a lot of fun making this tree. 

A blessed life

This painting is called "LIFE" 

Well, I haven't been a very good blogger.  I have SO much going on right now  I'm afraid my blog gets put pretty far down the list.  The first exciting thing we have going on is that we are getting a 4 year old little girl.  She will be placed in our home next week.  We have been hoping for this day for a long time and it looks like it may be it!  We are doing a legal risk adoption which means that the parents rights have not

been terminated yet, so it's not a sure thing.  Since the case goes to final trial next week we're pretty confident that it will all work out though.

Next on the busy schedule is that I'm about to teach my first art workshop a week from Saturday.  This

is very exciting and I've had a lot better response than I was even hoping for.  The workshop is a mixed media collage workshop for beginners.  It's been so fun getting everything ready for this class that it almost makes me wish I was an art teacher.

I just have to say, I feel very blessed right now in all that I see the Lord doing. Have a very blessed Easter and remember it's not about eggs and a rabbit!  It's about the greatest love of a Father sending His only son to die our our behalf that would could experience LIFE. 

New Painting

Here's the new painting I'm working on.  I'm hoping to get it finished by the end of the week.  More photos to come.

 

New Puppy

Here's our newest addition to the family.  We haven't named him yet since we've only had him a few hours.  He's part boxer, part schnauzer and only 5 weeks old. 

                                           Sweet face

                                             Meeting our dog Harley for the first time.

                                            Just a little difference in size. :-)

We got this new puppy after a heartbreaking week losing our other puppy

to distemper.  She was about 10 weeks old and we'd already become

very attached.  Our older dog, Harley is now so happy to have

a buddy to play with again.

So much for my Spring time weather.  It's been cold and W I N DY today. 

Here's a painting I just finished and it is called "Let the Wind Blow" oddly enough.

I want the wind of the Spirit to blow in my life but I'm not too crazy about

the wind outside right now....burrrrr...  

This painting has flowers and leaves from previous paintings that I did on watercolor

paper and cut up.  It gives a lot of dimension to this painting. 

Tomorrow is the beginning of Spring break, so if you don't see me here I'll be

enjoying some family time.  

Life Springing forth

It's that time of year we all seem to wish for, when things
start turning green, the air is warmer, there are wild flowers,
blooms on trees, and blue skies.  Spring is just a few weeks away and
I'm excited.   Next week is spring break and my oldest son will be home
from college. My younger son will start little league baseball soon, so
lots of games and practices around the corner.  I can't say I'm REAL
excited about that, but it is rather nice to be outdoors and watching
him play. 

So here's the finished piece I've been working on. The flowers and many of the
leaves are raised. I put several coats of varnish on the top
of this painting to help seal the petals and leaves. This will
be available on Etsy.com very soon. This is called "Life Springing Forth"
which although it is appropriate for this time of year, I really
painted this more about spiritual life springing forth all around rather
than it starting to look like spring outside. It's always encouraging
to see God on the move not only in my life but in other people's lives
around as well.  

10 My lover spoke and said to me, "Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me. 11 See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. 12 Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. 13 The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me." Song of Sol. 2:10-13

This is the before shot on a painting I've been working on.
I have redone this painting three different times. I'm
finally happy with it, although I had to tone down the colorful background
so the flowers would show up more. That was
hard for me to do, because I loved all the color.

Back in the saddle

Well, I took a huge blog break and I am back at it again.  I recently started my art business, so it's time to be deligent with these posts. 

Here's the link to my Etsy store :  http://www.etsy.com/shop/justatouchoftlc


 I'm so excited to finally get things going again.  Hope you'll join me on the journey.