Oil painting has always fascinated me, however I do not have any natural artistic talent, so the thought of jumping straight into oils somewhat intimidated me. There is a group at my church that paints for Christ and they do absolutely wonderful art pieces that circulate throughout the church, and if they are sold the proceeds go to various ministries within the church. The first time I saw one of their painting, I was inspired.
I had many family members as well as friends suggest that I start out with either drawing or painting in acrylics as they are more affordable. I did try painting in acrylics at first, as it did make sense to learn with a more affordable medium. What I didn’t take into account was that acrylics dry significantly faster than oils and I often found myself in a state of either frustration or speed painting in order to get my ideas out on canvas before the paints dried!
I suppose I got to the point where my desire to learn to paint with oils superseded my fear of the costs of starting out in oil painting. I finally worked up the courage, and made the jump to oils—and I have never looked back.
It was around this time that my youngest child turned three and she was into everything. One of her greatest joys was to sit in her playpen and watch me paint. She seemed to have just as good of a time watching me paint as I had painting!
One day while we were at the library I came across a really cute book called Crafts to Celebrate God’s Creation. This book had lots of cute craft projects for kids about her age. After flipping through the book I decided that this was probably a book that we were better off buying instead of borrowing, as craft time at my house is a messy event! The craft projects in the book also helped open up the conversation about God, scripture and creation of the world. Molly and I have had a blast creating projects for the church and we have even done some finger painting abstracts which sold for over $500!
