Painting the Last Week of 2011 With Grace

Another week, one full of celebrations, has been painted.

This means I now have fifty-two calendar paintings. 

This means I really and truly made it through the whole year. 

The pages are in chronological order in a notebook, but they are by no means orderly.

The corners curl.

The sizes vary. 

The paintings vary.

Some look better than others. 

This was an experiment. 

An imperfect attempt at combining art and time. 

Still, I knew it would be this way. 

The surprise was how much grace, my word for 2011, fit into the picture. 

Grace through curling corners.

Grace through varying sizes.

Grace through varying paintings.

Grace through messy.

This last painting was one of a few that I had to enlist the help of scrap paper and glue to cover up mistaken dates. It took effort to put Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in their proper places.   

Ironic how grace does the same thing. 

Covering up imperfections.

Smoothing over mistakes. 

Giving another chance. 

Of course, grace does that seamlessly, unlike my paper and glue. 

Maybe that is why grace is so amazing. 

For history I recently read about Jonathan Edwards
(a preacher, theologian, and missionary, though not a painter as far as I know.)

He was quoted as saying "Grace is but glory begun, and glory is but grace perfected."
I wrote this down, seeing only the word grace.

Now, as I look forward to 2012, I appreciate the thought behind it.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this year of grace and painted weeks.
But this new year is full of new, wonderful possibilities.
I have new projects in mind.
I have a new word to share.
And there is more glory to find along the way.

Blessings to you~ Megan

Painting the Week of Joy

This week has held

baking,

shopping, 

creating, 

decorating,

wrapping,

secret-keeping,

waiting,

and other joys that come this time of year. . .  

Happy painting~ Megan

Painting the Week of Excitement

Dance performance details and Christmas preparations have filled this week with excitement. . . 

Happy painting~ Megan

Painting the Week of Preparations

Christmas is approaching and I 

watch,

wait,

create, 

until it arrives. 

Happy painting~ Megan

Painting the Week of Hope

Stepping into the advent season with color. . . 

Happy painting! ~Megan

Painting the Week of Thankful

This week has been full 

of food

family and friends

from that very pleasant holiday

where you give thanks 

Happy painting! ~Megan

Painting the Weeks of Fast

Sharing reflections on weeks flown away--

Happy painting~ Megan

Painting the Weeks

October is drifting away with the falling leaves, and I am glad for my calendar paintings that remind me of each day. The chance to slow down and reflect with paint is a very happy thing! ~Megan

Painting the Week of Changing Colors

This week the leaves outside began to change from their usual green to more vibrant shades of yellow, orange, and red. For my calendar painting, I changed from my usual method of watercolor paints to watercolor crayons. They are a lot like watercolor pencils, and I liked the added structure they brought.

A little water brushed on top made the crayon lines blur into each other. The more water added, the less pronounced the lines.

I wanted to make my colored tree mirror the real trees outside, so I mixed in some regular yellow watercolor paint.

The finished picture was a mix of all the colors--

Happy painting! ~Megan

Picturing September

Here's what I've been up to. . . .

 school work 

 accomplishing my first experiment using a microscope

enjoying a wonderful weekend with my cousins, including a walk on the trail behind their house

discovering a spectacular set of stairs on that same trail

learning that our ballet performance next summer will be based on the book The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams (image via Amazon)

painting

admiring Camille's dry erase board art (I'm not sure where the robot and aliens came from. . . usually pink with princesses is the theme of choice) 

admiring sunflowers on the side of the road. . . I decided a blurry picture of them was better than none

taking a guitar class with my dad

 reading a lot of books for literature

practicing for a piano competition

And that translates into. . . .

These five weeks have managed to be very full! I'm hoping blogging will do some of the filling this month! ~Megan

Painting the Week of Learning

This week has been full of
learning
from books,
about books,
about how to use books.
Still little bits
of whimsy
snuck into my journal,
a place I love
to go and
a time
I am
learning
to treasure.
So while I
painted this
week, full
of school,
I added
pictures from
my journal.
After all,
learning
can be bilateral.

May learning pleasantly cross your path this week~ Megan

Painting the Week of School

With as many books as I've been holding lately, holding a paintbrush this week was an especially nice contrast! Happy painting~ Megan

On My Toes

Hello again! Time has gone by rather quickly since I last posted. I didn't mean to take a blogging break, but these past few weeks have kept me on my toes. . .

-- Dance intensive. I was very literally on my toes in a two-week dance intensive where I took ballet, modern, jazz, and an assortment of other classes every day. It was both an amazing and exhausting experience!  

-- Opera camp. As soon as the dance intensive ended, opera camp began. While there I enjoyed learning about the opera Turandot, singing a variety of songs, and getting to do it with Middle Sister and a couple of good friends. I thought these two weeks would be calmer, but opera camp kept me on my toes in a whole other way. 

-- Cold. This week I didn't have any kind of camp, instead I had a full-blown head cold which kept me at my favorite place—home. In the midst of recuperating, I began several school subjects, did a lot of reading, and eased back into a more familiar routine.                                                                                
       

I have very much enjoyed living on my toes, but am now looking forward to a more paced schedule with time to sit down and capture bits of life right here in the blogging world. See you soon! ~Megan

Painting the Week of Summer

Painting a week filled with sun, celebrations, and preparations--

Happy painting (even though this is belated)! ~Megan

Painting the Week with Doodles

This week I got to take a class about art in the real world at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. This class was very different from the watercolor one in that I learned more about the art world than the actual techniques for making art.

My teacher, Zach Houston, is a very interesting person with a limitless view on art. The first pieces of art he sold were poems on street corners. He would put up a sign offering to write a poem about any topic you chose for any price you named. People would come up to him, give him a word, and watch as he typed on his typewriter. After several minutes they would receive a finished poem and give him a donation. This fascinating concept aroused attention and he now writes poems and has his drawings on display in a temporary exhibit at the Nelson called "poemstore".

Throughout the class we got to try out typewriters and sketch in notebooks, but the main project we did was create a board comparing real life and art. We first took two pieces of paper and used fine tipped Sharpies to draw what we thought of as real life on one page and what we thought of as art on the other. After that we glued the pages on a much larger sheet of paper and tried to connect them with other drawings. Zach Houston's drawings often look like purposeful doodles, so I tried to draw with that same style.

 When I did my calendar painting for this week, I put my doodling practice to use. Fusing watercolors and pens was an interesting experiment!   

Happy creating! ~ Megan

Painting the Week with Techniques

This past week I had the opportunity to take a watercolor class at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. While there I learned several different techniques--

Graded wash: Painting a line of color then wetting the brush and dragging that line of paint down.

Rubbing Alcohol: Spraying a little bit of rubbing alcohol on a section of painted paper, causing it to turn white wherever the alcohol touched.

Sponge: Applying paint with a sponge.

 Plastic Wrap: Laying a sheet of plastic wrap over a painting while it is still wet and scrunching the plastic wrap into interesting patterns. You let it dry overnight then peel off the plastic wrap, leaving white lines.

Paper Towel: Dabbing a freshly painted area with a paper towel.

Variegated wash: Several colors of paint swirled together.

Flat wash: A layer of paint applied on the paper evenly.


Layering brush strokes: Painting over a flat wash with different colors and patterns.

Salt: Sprinkling salt on a newly painted section of paper and allowing it to sit there. Once the paint has dried, you brush off the salt and it takes part of the paint with it, making the page have little dots and patterns.

In an effort to both use and remember these techniques, I decided to try one of them in each square of my calendar painting for this week--

Saturday-- variegated wash, Sunday-- sponge, Monday-- paper towel, Tuesday-- salt, Wednesday-- flat wash, Thursday-- graded wash, Friday-- layering brush strokes

Unfortunately I forgot one thing-- to use watercolor paper. Watercolor paper is made with fabric that helps absorb all the water needed to paint with watercolors, whereas the regular paper I used doesn't have any fabric and, therefore, doesn't react well to water. I am hoping to use watercolor paper next week so the techniques work better. Until then here are the two big pieces of art I made at the classes--

Happy watercoloring! ~Megan