After a long delay and many wanderings…..

LIHOP 021715 uploadWell hello again!  Since my last post, I have completed the remodel on my  house, sold it, moved to Texas, and went on a month long, wandering journey!  My creative juices were somewhat depleted, and I have just recently been able to pick up my brushes again.  I just competed the above piece last night at the Lubbock International House of Prayer.  (This is the same place I painted two other pieces that I talked about in an earlier post here.)  I painted this during 2 sessions a couple of months apart.  I originally started it oriented vertically, but then, after I got it home and looked at it with fresh eyes, I thought it might work better horizontally.  The mountainous shapes appeared, and the collage work on the rocky foreground seemed to set a structure.  I began to develop the piece a step at a time, and was able to complete the most realistic piece I’ve done in a very long time.

I think I will title it Secret Place.  It is similar to, although not exactly the same as, the place that I visit and meet with Jesus in my mind.  It is a place of rest, healing and beauty, but most of all, peace.  I often come there walking through the trees.

I invite you to enter into this piece, if you do not have a secret place of your own, and see how Jesus will meet you there.  Feel free to add things, or alter things, or change them around to suit yourself.  Maybe you need a hammock between two of the trees, maybe there is a raft on the lake, maybe there is more of a sandy shore where you can lay in the sun.  Picture yourself there, and see what He will say to you, or what He does.  Can you hear the waves lapping along the shore? Can you hear the wind whispering in the trees?  Can you smell the piney fragrance, and the refreshing scent of a recent rain?