hands of praise

Hands have the ability to convey a message without words...  

even without motion.

What do my hands convey about me? 

What message do I want them to send?

 If I am limited to one, 

 it is this:

Serve the Lord.

thyme with sarah

Gathering

Holly Berries

 

Black Mondo Grass Berries

 

Purple Heather

Beautiful Moss

 

 

The Fruit of our Labor

To the Press (a garlic press)

The moss was very disappointing. Even after sitting for several days, it did not create a useable color.

The holly berries were wonderful and horrid. I had at first been hoping to create a beautiful red... but as the old saying goes, "it's what's on the inside that counts." The inside of the holly berry is a tarnished yellow. With the failure of the moss, this resulted in a wonderful alternative for the vines. The small drawback... it smelled horrid.

 

These are the modo grass berries. This is by far my favorite of the colors that were created: an ashen-eggplant.

Here are several of the pigments steeping in their containers.

The Palette

The Verses

The First Words

Adding in Some Detail

Like Mother Like Daughter, Sarah wants to paint too!

Our Finished Pieces

sarah

How do you create the perfect portrait? Striking the right pose, lighting, attire and hair can be a challenge. My youngest daughter and I spent a day trying to achieve a perfect balance. Shooting close to 200 pictures over the course of the day in different settings, these portraits represent our favorites and quite a learning experience.

This first picture gets its rating in our favorites due to pose and expression. While the entertainment center is a nice piece of furniture, it does not really work as a background in this case.

So many pictures have been taken in front of the eggplant velvet drapes. I like the lines of Sarah's body with the drapes, but was sorely disappointed that across all of the shots, the drapes either had breaks in them (my fault), or the pose or quality of photo was not good. It is a good reminder to failures.

The next three shots are all utilize an antique piano as the background. It is very satisfying and beautiful. The old-fashioned hair-do and simple black velvet dress both go well with the setting. The only drawback to this beautiful portrait is the piano music book in the lower right-hand corner. The same issue is found in another picture. Sarah and I really like those two the best.  

Keeping in mind the era of the piano, I cropped both images to create a tighter look, which is more reminiscent of portraits from the 1800's, the era of the piano. The two pictures below are the result. I had hoped to present them side-by-side and placed them in the post that way--however, when I view the post, the images display one above the other.

  

branching faith

This is another series on hands utilizing different mediums.

The first movement has a base of pastels rubbed into the paper. The image of hands branching towards the heavens was created by using an artist's eraser to remove the pastel coloring. The interesting thing about this, is that when I began this piece, I had been torn between the idea of creating a tree or continuing with hands. I thought that I had settled on a tree, but hands still came through.

With this second movement I added outline in charcoal, fingernails, hand bones, knuckle wrinkles and the beginnings of shading. Lower perimeter "ground" has also been added to anchor the tree.

The final movement works to add dimension to the piece through contour drawing, emphasized outline and heavier shading. The proportion of the second finger has also been addressed. With the image of the hands popping out more distinctly, the tree became more of a whisper. To bring this back out, while maintaining its position as secondary, braches, leaves and fruit were added with a medium/light weight.