Making Art Together is the New Quality Time

You can create art.

Even if you draw a line and a circle on a piece of paper, that's art.

What makes that line and circle even more special is creating those shapes with your child or any loved one right next to you.

That line and circle become a precious memory when it's done with someone you love.

The beauty of making art is making art with someone you love.

I recently bought one of those adult coloring books with flowers.

I bought it to learn how to draw flowers.

So one evening my youngest daughter and I were watercoloring.  I looked over at her watercoloring and thought hey why don't I do the same thing (that she is doing).

She simply made watercolored lines.  I loved it.

My lines ended up more of a blotch.

We let the watercoloring pictures dry overnight.

The next day I used a sharpie and drew a poppy over the dried watercolor blotch that I made.

Turned out to be pretty unique.

I used PicMonkey to add a little more uniqueness to it!

What have you made lately?

Let me know in the comment section below.

Isaiah 41:10 Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

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What's that in your hand?

What's that in your hand Moses?

I said "what's that in your hand Moses?"

Those two sentences (questions) come from a song that my aunt used to sing all the time.

After singing the song, she would look at me and say "What's that in your hand Tonya?"

Fast forward a few years later and I am sitting in church.

The preacher says something like "God can use whatever you have in your hand. What's in your hand?"

When he said those words, I was holding a red pen.  I thought "What can God do with that?"

Shortly after I heard that sermon, I started teaching PreK and creating all kinds of art for bulletin boards and day to day activities for my children in class.

Sometimes, I would think back on that sermon and the red pen and say to myself "Wow, God used the red pen."

That red pen symbolized using ink and paper to me.

Fast forward a few more years and here I am blogging about all things that involve using your hands creatively with pen, paper and paint.

Who knew?

I never would have imagined.

What's in your hand dear reader?

Whatever it is someone needs your gift to help lighten the heavy load of life.


And Moses answered and said, But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared unto thee. And the Lord said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod. -Exodus 4:1-2


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3 Very Basics of an Art Supply List for Your Artful Child at Home

First on the list is a box of crayons.

I have given a box of crayons as part of an artful gift.  I pair the crayons with some great coloring books and books and wrap nicely.

I love crayons.  Don't you?'

And owning a box of crayons teaches children so much about decision making and choices.

I mean think about it for a minute...

If your child is coloring an animal, he or she has to decide what color will the animal be. What color will the eyes of this animal be?

Your child has to decide if he or she will add colors and drawings that are not on the picture.  ...like adding clouds to a cloudless picture.

Crayons teach without ever saying a word.

And after all that decision making, your child gets to sit back and enjoy all his or her labor that went into making that picture pretty.

The next art supply for your artful home is Black Sharpies.

Black Sharpie's are the business.  really.


You can take a black sharpie and create your own coloring books for your child.

You can use a black Sharpie to write out sentences, words or pictures.

Every artful home should have a few Black Sharpie's.

And lastly, a ream of white paper .

If you have a printer at home, printing paper can be used for creating art as well as creating reading books.


This is a very basic beginning to building a Home art supply arsenal.

What other art supplies do you keep on hand?

But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand. -Isaiah 64:8

But thou, O Lord, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head. -Psalm 3:3

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Tips for using Colored Pencils

1. Use various shades of colored pencils on a picture.  You can overlap colored pencils when coloring.

 

2. After coloring your picture with a colored pencils, take a q-tip and add a little baby oil and gently go over your colored pencil art. This gives a further blended look.

 

3. Keep colored pencils sharpened.

 

4. Use lighter colored pencils on the inside of a drawing and use the darker colored pencil (in that color family) on the outside.

 

5. Color in the same direction when using colored pencils.

 

6. Don't be afraid of using a white colored pencil to overlap your artwork.

7. You can use a white colored pencil to color over mistakes that you may make on your artwork as well.

Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. -James 4:8

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Branding and Blogging

I took a branding questionnaire some time back.  That thing was so mind opening!  It really helped me to focus on something with blogging.   I should say that it helped to focus on something that comes natural for me.

Art.

You see I have blogged about some of everything since 2009.  I blogged about natural hair, motherhood, and vegetarian/veganism just to name a few.

If you are trying to figure out which direction to take your blog, I strongly recommend tapping into the Branding info at the link below.

As you look around my blog, you will see that I am not the world's greatest artist.  And I am totally okay with that.  I don't claim to be anything other than an imperfect Christian.

 I really never would have imagined that I'd be blogging about art.

 But the branding questionnaire directed me to this "very good for me" discovery.

I used to teach Pre-K and my class was filled with art and creativity projects left and right.
I taught an after school Arts and Crafts program for middle school children.
I taught a homeschool art class at Michael's Arts and Craft store for awhile also.
I also created signs and posters for a Summer Program that I taught art there as well.
I have even had several people pay me to create artwork for their school, classroom and birthday party!

Blogging about art is very new to me.  I am not an expert at it, but I like art.

We recently moved to a new place and I decided to create an art space to see what kinda cool creative things that I can come up with!  When I get it all together, I will post photos.

When I found these mason jars at Target recently, I knew I wanted to use them for art supply storage.

Oh and since starting this blog, I have found the coolest art blogs and artsy instagrammers. I will put together a post about them for you soon! UPDATE  here is that post.

Are you into creating things? If so, what kind of artful things do you create?

Do you sew, knit or draw? I would love to know!

Let me know in the comment section.

You can find the author of the Branding Questionnaire here.

And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you; -1 Thessalonians 4:11

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4 Tips on How to draw Bible Verses

If you have been following this blog for awhile, then you know that I love art and I love the Bible! That combo is happy happy for me.  I just need to add a little disclaimer that I am not perfect.

Okay so now that it's clear that I am not perfect here, I am going to tell you how I come up with ideas to draw along with a Bible verse.

Well, the first thing I do before reading the Bible is pray.

After that, I read the verse.  And usually when I read the verse, a word will stand out that I can draw. Take for instance chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians.  That chapter is about love.  When I think of love, I see hearts.

So I draw that one word that stands out.  In this case, it's hearts.  So, I draw hearts.

Then the verse goes on through telling what love is.  So, I add what love is beside each heart and voila a little artwork.

Let me demonstrate with another verse.  Let's take this verse in Isaiah:

Isaiah 58:14 Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.


So, this verse talks about high places.  Well, when I think of high places, I think of various things and also various situations.  Have you ever heard someone say "Take the high road".  I think of stuff like that as well.

But in this case, I was trying to scribble out a hot air balloon one night.  While I was trying to figure out how to make a hot air balloon, this verse in Isaiah came to mind so I wrote it at the bottom of the drawing.

So sometimes I can be drawing and a verse will come to my mind as well.

And there are times when I don't draw pictures, but just write a little summation of the verse.  You can see more of those summations here and here.

I hope this post helps you on your artful journey!

Here is a brief recap of  How to Draw Bible Verses:
1. Pray
2. Choose a word that stands out to you and draw that.
3. Draw a picture first and think of a verse to go along with that.
4. Write a summation of the verse in calligraphy or hand lettering.

Try it!  And let me know how it works for you!

Happy Drawing!

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Wall Art: The Silent Influencer

As I prepare to hang pictures in my "new to me home office", I want to share this story with you.

I once read a story about a young man who became a surfer.  And sadly his choice of a
profession was to the dismay of his parents.

You see his mom and dad wanted their son to become a medical doctor or an attorney. Yes, they wanted him to become some type of professional of their own choosing.

As the story continued,  it was discovered that the son and his family had eaten breakfast and dinner together at the same table for many many years. 

They had taken the time to eat together. 

Well, that's special.

But this is what the real blow you away discovery was...There above the table hung a picture on the wall.

The mom had hung a picture of a beautiful ocean with big waves and a pretty blue sky. 

And right there riding the wave was a surfer.

For many many years at that table no one ever mentioned the art on the wall but it silently influenced the son in his life profession.

What's on your walls?

...by beholding you become changed and so do our children . 

And thou shalt write them upon the posts of your house,  and on your gates.
-Deuteronomy 6:9

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Collegiate and Artful

 So the Christmas break is just about ending.  My oldest daughter is soon to return to her college life as well as my second oldest.  So it will be two children home with their two parents.  Sometimes I get the fun privilege of perusing through my daughter's photos from college.  Yes, that actually happens...ha! ha!

I really think my daughter has a photographer's eye for capturing great photos.

She let me post a photo of her dorm room while she was in the process of decorating her room with paper chains and a map that she simply cut up and taped it to the wall.  I thought it was cute and unique.  

And something that I thought was really cool was she and her friends chalk drawings on the sidewalk.  Who knew that college kids could find great fun in writing with chalk on the sidewalk?

Collegiate and artistic!

Daniel 1:17 As for these four children, God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom: and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams.

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