Summer Beginnings

While biting my nails, waiting for the manuscript of my latest book “Present!” to be sent back by my editor, I intensely keep busy with other pursuits that take second fiddle to my writing.

One of them is painting.

Since that Sunday of Resurrection, when faith brethren in church got together to celebrate Easter by painting, I have not stopped. With every free time (from part-time summer teaching and marathon reading), I grab my brushes—and paint.

The last time I dabbled in painting was in 2006. This time, nine years later, I have decided to tackle  summer colors and patterns. 

Butterflies are it.

I really want to be an artist when I grow up. (I am as inept in painting as I am in cooking.) Painting, like reading, holds so much rapture for me, the restful kind. What grace that feeling is—it’s like lying down in green pastures, beside the still waters. Indefinable peace for the restless soul. 

I initially began painting on that glorious Sunday some palm fronds, topped with a butterfly hovering over flowers. The painting is unfinished; it needs re-touching and re-doing. I have an idea of what it needs; I just don't know if my hands are capable of doing them.

After that, I started a few more. Again they are all unfinished, needing a splash there and a swoosh here. Or maybe some dabs and rubs. But I signed one or two so the blame does not fall on anyone but me.

Then one day last week, my friend G, an artist of the first order (also an art director par excellence) joins me and tries to put some sense into my madness.

Oooh, she knows exactly what a teeny section needs and her hands obey her imagination. She gives me great tips here and there, but somehow, my hands rampage toward the messy, danger zones.

I get excited just thinking about my next images—my mind is definite, but my hands are iffy. So, let me give you a sneak peek of my initial works.

I call the series "Summer Beginnings." I hope to finish at least one before summer is gone—or before I get back to the reason I breathe: writing.

"He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.” Psalm 23:2-3 (ESV)