I Cannot Hide It

I want to tell you how amazing this past year has been.  But to give you the full picture, I feel like I need to start in late 2010.

October 2010:Eric and I decided to start a family

November 2011: We had waited for over a year.  I started to fear that something was wrong.  The church that Eric and I go to has a healing service a few times a year (not the kind where they hit your forehead) and we went up and asked for prayer to get pregnant.  I remember being prayed for by one of the elders of the church.  When I walked back to my seat I felt this real warmth inside of me where a baby would grow.  I didn’t know for sure that I would ever get pregnant, but I knew that God had heard my prayers.

December 2011:  I had a bit of a sad Christmas while struggling with infertility and started to dread 2012.  I feared that it would be as bad or worse than the previous year of waiting.

January 2012: I rung in the New Year feeling really let down and depressed.  I feared the future and what it would hold.  Eric and I went to the doctor’s and discussed a plan for fertility treatment.  Later that month we decided to hold off on fertility testing so that Eric could run for US Congress.   A friend of mine gave me a maternity top.  She felt a little awkward about it, but felt as if God wanted her to give it to me.  I clung to it for months thanking God for not forgetting about me.

April 2012:  On the 24th, the fun and excitement of the campaign came to an end on voting day, and I didn’t have any more distractions to take my mind off of the valley that I was in.  I started to dwell on what felt like a huge hole in my life.  We continued to put fertility testing on hold until Eric found a job.

May 2012:  I started to get really depressed and emotional about not being pregnant.  I begged God to let this phase of life end.  I went to my parent’s house and broke down.  I felt like I couldn’t take it anymore.  I shared my story at the Alpha course at church.

June 2012: I held off on taking a pregnancy test for as long as possible, because I hated seeing the “negative” sign.  Eric urged me to take one.  It was the morning of June 10th that I saw the “positive” sign.  When I saw it, I couldn’t believe it.  Then I just started sobbing.  I was so happy.  So relieved.  The wait was finally over.  When I finally pulled myself together I went in and told Eric.  When we went to our first appointment the nurse told us that she believed the first day of our pregnancy (LMP) was May 1st.  Which means I was probably pregnant when I cried on my parent’s couch about not being pregnant, and I was probably pregnant when I shared my story at Alpha.  I may have even been pregnant on mother’s day.

January 2013:  I am looking forward to 2013!!  What a difference a year can make.  We are expecting our baby in four weeks, and I am so thankful to God for bringing me through and for giving me this amazing gift!  How wrong I was about 2012 being a horrible year.  It was one of the best years I can remember.  If you’re facing 2013 feeling hopeless and depressed, hang in there!  Who knows what this year will hold?  I pray that it will be a great year for you.  The year that the waiting ends.  The year that the sadness fades and hope is restored.

Let Heaven and Nature Sing

I know that I said I was going to update the blog with a picture of the dog that I started painting, but I decided to hold off until I can tell you the full story behind the piece.  So I’m hoping that I will have an update for you at the beginning of next week.

In the mean time, I’ve decided to follow trend and post a few pictures of my house at Christmas time.  It’s nothing grand, but it’s still fun seeing little touches of the holiday season all around me.

I saw a few Christmas carol garlands on Pinterest that I thought were cool so I made my own using some leftover paper that I bought for bookmaking.  I love this line because it gives me the mental image of a HUGE celebration at the birth of Jesus.  A celebration so big that even now, thousands of years later, we’re still celebrating!

I grew up in Thailand, and as a result we never had a real Christmas tree.  I like fake Christmas trees better than real ones for many reasons, but I did buy this real mini tree and put it in a pot that I had already.  

I feel like a bit of a ninny-muggins for having a theme for my Christmas tree, but I do.  ”Let Heaven and Nature Sing!”  I used natural colors and elements like animal ornaments.  

Stay tuned for more Christmas-y posts.  I’m planning on making more snow globes this year as well as door swags for outside!

Giving It Away

*image found here.

I don’t know about you, but when I’m donating things I tend to pick out the objects that are well-worn, out of style, or in a word, worthless.  When it comes to giving things to people in need, why don’t we ever give out of the good possessions that we have?  Why is it always the scraps?  Isn’t there a part of us that says, “They should be grateful to have anything they can get.”  But people in need are essentially getting the scraps in every area of their lives.  Maybe if we gave them things of value, they would feel valued.

I’m not saying that people should base their worth on what they have, but I’m more concerned about the message that we send people in need when everything that we give them is practically worthless.  And I’m definitely not saying that second-hand things shouldn’t be donated.  I think it’s a responsible thing to do on many levels.

We’re exploring this topic in terms of our talents in my art group this month.  In college I was taught that giving your art away is not something that should be done regularly.  It is bad for your business to do that.  How can you make money when you’re not selling your art?  But another part of me wants to use my abilities to be a blessing to others.  So this month, the people in my art group and I are all creating a piece (or pieces) with the medium of our choice to give away to someone…anyone!  The idea is to use our best materials, and to do our best work.  No scraps allowed!   I am not going to share my project with you yet, but I will tell you that it is an oil painting.

I sincerely hope that this attitude of giving does not end with this month.  I want to continue to keep my eyes and ears open for people to encourage with my art and with the many belongings that I’ve been blessed with.  Considering all that God has done for me and given me, it’s really the least that I can do.

Animal Lover

I would consider myself quite an animal lover.  Not in the traditional sense though.  You won’t find a single pet in my house unless it’s the occasional wild animal being “rescued.”  Here are a couple of animals that Eric, Harmony, and I have cared for over the years.  The smaller ones were found as babies and we kept them for a couple of weeks feeding them kitten formula until they were ready to be re-released back into the wild (aka our yard).

This is Tomato, a baby rabbit that Harmony found in our dad’s garden.  Harmony’s holding him here not long before we released him.  At this point he was twice as big as when we found him.

This is one of two baby chipmunks that we found over the years.  We fed him until he was healthy and strong enough to take care of himself.  This was Eric’s favorite and watching him hold this little guy made me sure he would be a good dad.  I know…it’s a whole different animal.  In this picture, Eric and I brought it to visit my parent’s house and Harmony fed him kitten formula.

And last but not least, the fawn that we found and kept for twenty minutes before returning him to his mom.  Again, another moment I knew Eric would make a great dad.  You can see the pieces that I painted to document this event here.

I love observing animals in their natural environments.  Especially deer.  Eric and I haven’t adopted any baby animals recently, but I am growing one.  I have also been making some animal terrariums.  Did you see the “Wild Horses” terrarium that I made for my mom?

I also made a terrarium for Eric’s Aunt Amy.  Aunt Amy provided a beautiful seeded glass jar and said to surprise her.  I thought moss was the best option for the closed space, because I know it can thrive in a sealed environment.  I also had a deer figurine that was the perfect scale for the jar.

The materials I used on this project were:  Jar, moss, deer figurine, peat moss, citrus soil, and activated carbon.   To learn how to make a terrarium, you can check out this post.

Because this terrarium is sealed, it will only need to be misted with water every couple of weeks (maybe less) because the water will recycle itself.  Another thing is that this terrarium should not be stored in direct sunlight or the moss will die.

Now tell me about yourself.  Are you an animal lover or an animal tolerator?  Do you have any pets?

Nixonian

Not the president, but the park.  Harmony and I went there again and were not disappointed.  There are new things to be discovered every time!  Here are a few glimpses of our hike today.

First we saw a family of mushrooms living in a tree.

And of course my favorite: moss.

We went off the beaten path a little to put our feet in some freezing water.

Harmony caught a fish.

She said, “Look he’s my friend.  I caught him.”  Then she released him, and a herd–or rather, a school–of them nibbled her toes.  I will let you interpret what it could have meant.

I just had to take this picture of Harmony’s characteristic hair.  It is so her!

And lastly as our hike was coming to a close, I captured the underside of a brightly colored mushroom.  That glowing coral-ish color is the same color you’ll see when someone’s ears are back-lit by the sun.  I love it!

Just to clarify, I wasn’t the one that took a nibble out of that mushroom.  Enjoy the rest of the weekend everyone!

Great Minds

I was scrolling around on Pinterest the other day and found this painting that seemed awfully familiar to me.

This painting is Girl with Cat by Heinrich Vogeler.  Its similarities to a painting that I did a few years ago struck me immediately.

Do you see it?  I mean, obviously my painting is more cropped and features a puppy instead of a cat, but still…is that not crazy-go-nuts?  Especially when you consider that mine was completed almost a hundred years after Girl with Cat.  When I completed this painting (called Thompson and I) I remember thinking “I haven’t ever seen a painting like this.”  Well, it just goes to show you that there is nothing new under the sun.

To the Future!

Thank you to everyone who read my baby announcing post and/or commented and said kind words.  It was so much fun to read all of them on here and Facebook.

I wanted to briefly discuss the future of this blog.  In case you are wondering, I have no intention of transitioning this blog into a mommy blog.  It is first and foremost an art blog.  I realize that there hasn’t even been much of that lately, and depending on how much I am able to work once the baby comes in February there may not be that much art in the future either.  I just don’t know, but I am hoping for the best.

I also want to assure you of my excitement over our new baby.  We have waited for this and I could not be more thrilled about it.  But I also don’t plan on posting a whole lot about the pregnancy on this blog out of respect for those who are struggling as I was to get pregnant.  One of the most difficult things about infertility is that you are constantly bombarded with things about and for moms and babies.  It is so hard to escape it and just feel normal for a while.  I may do a couple of posts about the nursery, and I’m thinking about creating a painting for the baby so I will update you on that.  Other than that, feel free to ask any questions by commenting or emailing me.  I am happy to talk about it.

I will be back soon with a couple of little crafty type things I’ve been working on.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend!  :)

Nothing New Under the Sun

“What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.”   Ecclesiastes 1:9

Minion and I decided to go on a hike in Nixon Park.  Nixon is one of my favorite places to go, but I can’t tell you why.  It’s not the grandest, most impressive park, but there is so much beauty to be seen.  It’s where Eric and I got engaged.  I bring my camera whenever I go there hoping to photograph something that will inspire a painting.  You would not believe how many times a day  I look at something and think “that would be a cool painting.”

Here are a few of the photos that I took there:

This one is my favorite.  This is a Piebald deer.  I had never seen one or even heard of one until I saw this doe.  I have a feeling she’ll be showing up in a lot of my work.

We also found a turtle, but it didn’t come out to play.

Check out these leaves!  I love how the light is filtering through them.

The underside of these leaves was an awesome silvery color.  I wonder how difficult it would be to mix that color.

This next picture is when I turned to Harmony and said: “Wow! Look at that huge bed of sperm!  ACK! I mean FERNS. FERNS!”  Awkward!

These flowers fell from the trees and were all over the ground.  What are they?

I look for inspiration everywhere I go, but there is nothing new under the sun.  Anything that I create is a mere imitation of God’s creation.  And a very poor imitation at that.  It may be cheesy to say, but being outside is better than any gallery.

Sketchy

Looking through the sketchbook of an artist is a bit like peeking into someone’s journal.  It’s not like I’d be angry or offended if someone picked up my sketchbook and started leafing through it, but in my opinion, you should always ask the artist if it’s OK first.  And don’t be offended if they want to flip through the book with you and only show you certain things.

My sketchbook is not as personal as many are, but it can be a bit embarrassing.  It’s where I unload my brain so a lot of the sketches are rather odd like the one pictured below.  A cheese tree for mice? Yes.

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My sketchbook is also a place where I try things on for size.  I’m not crazy about a lot of non-representational art, but this is something that I took from an old Nat Geo photo of the Earth.  I guess it represents river systems, but to me it seemed more abstract and I was drawn to the colors and shapes so I sketched it with water color pencils.

My sketchbook is a place where I can practice using different techniques with mediums like colored pencils.

I also like to sketch from my art books.  This is a sketch I did of Stieler’s Portrait of Lola Montez.

Of course, there is usually the odd animal sketch in there too.  I cut these ones out.

My sketchbook doesn’t have anything amazing in it.  It’s mostly a brain dump of creative ideas or inspirations.  It has a lot of half-baked ideas and unfinished drawings.  But there is still something that feels private about it.  Why is that?

The Campaign Revisited

Eric is an exceptional man.  Life with him never gets dull.  His recent bid for the open US Congress seat in our district was a prime example of what it’s like to be married to him.  Towards the end of January he made a decision to run for congress, and I can’t say that it surprised me.  It was a classic Eric move, and it was brilliant.

Here are some of the campaign highlights:

Submitting our 1,250 signature petition to the capitol after weeks of hard work,

Seeing Eric on TV and hearing him on the radio,

Sign bomb day,

And handing out literature on voting day!

When we first started the campaign, we had no idea what a nerve-wracking and humbling experience it would be.  When you run for congress at the age of 26 there are a lot of people telling you you’re too young, or you don’t belong in the race.  Eric handled it so well, and I think he proved them wrong.  He ended up coming in fifth out of seven candidates, and he ran a good clean race.

Ultimately I learned a lot of things, but I’ll only bore you with a few of them.

•  It is really important to be supportive of your spouse.  I tried to go to every event that Eric had.  Not only did it mean a lot to him, but it meant a lot to the people who saw us there together.
• I need to vote more.  I learned a lot about this country and how things work.  There are so many changes that need to be made, and on voting day I noticed something really shocking.  There was a twenty-five percent turnout, and the vast majority of voters at my poll were over the age of  fifty!  As a younger generation we NEED to step up and use our voices.
• Every vote counts!  Eric edged out the man in 6th place by four votes!

Ok, I’m almost done.  I just want to say a special Thank You Soooo Much! to all of the friends and family who helped us throughout the campaign.  I still can’t believe how awesome you are!  We are truly blessed to know you.

And lastly, here is a compilation of several of Eric’s speeches that our friend Clif put together.  Enjoy!