Posts in Watercolor

“Even when I walk through a valley of deep darkness, I will not be afraid because you are with me. Your rod and your staff—they comfort me” Psalm 23:4. (ISV)

We lost power in the middle of the night once when there was no moonlight. Since we live away from the center of town, there isn’t much light coming from outside. I have never experienced such deep darkness before. I could see absolutely nothing. The kids were all little, and they were terrified. So we came to them first, and then searched for flashlights. As soon as we were with the kids, they calmed right down. They didn’t like the dark but they weren’t terrified like they had been when they were alone in it.

Nobody likes going into the “deepest darkness” as the GNT puts it. Most people prefer to be on the mountain top, loving life, enjoying the view. But if there were only mountains, then the landscape is not high, it is flat. There is nothing higher than where you already are. And nothing lower. So you never learn to climb.

Sea turtles need to climb through the sand to get to the water. The climbing is what gives them the strength they will need to swim once they reach the water. Without that experience, they would not survive.

We need to learn to climb too.

We need the valley to learn life giving lessons so we can enjoy the mountain. And to get out of the valley, we have to climb hard and long up dangerous pathways to get to higher ground, hoping we won’t be lost, or eaten by carnivorous critters like bears and wolves.

But we are never alone. The Great Shepherd is guiding us, protecting us.

Sheep have a lot of dangers in a valley as well. Besides being eaten by wild animals, they can get lost, injured, stuck, or fall over and not be able to get back up on their own (and therefore die). Because of this, the shepherd is very attentive and is always looking out for his sheep. He calls them back when they start to wander, and may use his rod to gently guide them back to the herd. He notices when one slips away and goes out to find the missing sheep. If a sheep has fallen over, the shepherd will help to get him back on his feet. If he is stuck, the shepherd will use his hooked staff to wrap around him and pull him up. He keeps watch for wolves and protects the sheep by using his rod to defend against wolves and drive them away.

The shepherd is fully equipped with everything needed to safely get them through the valley.

When we are in a valley, we are in it with our shepherd, Jesus.

He guides and protects us.

He pulls us out of the mud.

He rescues us from dangerous places.

He puts our feet on safe ground.

He protects us from evil.

He makes sure we make it through alright.

Be encouraged, my friend. Our God is able to get you through this valley threatening death. He will never leave you or abandon you, and nothing can separate you from him. (Hebrews 13:5, Romans 8:38, Psalm 139:7-12)

As much as God loves the sheep and the turtles, his love for you is the greatest of all.

Encouragement, Watercolor, PromisesMerri LewisOctober 16, 2024psalm 23, sheep, valley, landscapeComment

Promise-Filled Stones

“I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds.”

— Psalm 77:11-12

Twenty-seven years ago, God did an amazing thing! Do you remember what it was for you? For me, God brought to life Philippians 3:13-14, inspiring me to persevere. I remember because it was one of those moments where I understood something so meaningful to me, that I wrote a poem to capture it.

God is constantly working in us and for us. Sometimes it’s like God takes out his extra-fluorescent highlighter and colors the event to make sure we see it. You know if God is highlighting something, we need to pay attention and remember it. We need to capture it somehow so it doesn’t escape our fragile memories. “I will remember the deeds of the LORD;” Psalm 77:11

A favorite book of mine, Hinds Feet On High Places, by Hannah Hurnard, illustrates this beautifully. In case you are not familiar, here are the tidbits of pertinent information:

The main character, Much-Afraid, lives in the Valley of Humiliation. She is trying to reach the High Places but she is crippled and afraid. The Chief Shepherd invites her to come with him to the High Places, but to do that she needs to be healed and transformed. So the Shepherd promises her that he will help her develop hinds feet so she can live in the mountains.

All sort of things happen along the way to the High Places. Every time she encounters a hardship of some sort, she becomes fearful again, and cries out for the Shepherd to help her. He comes quickly to help, instruct and comfort her. She then builds an altar at that location to remember the promise or lesson she learned. To remember this, she takes a leftover stone from the altar and saves it in a small pouch. When she would feel lonely and hopeless, filled with doubts, she would look in the bag and remember each lesson she had learned; each promise given. Now encouraged and empowered, she embarks up the difficult and sometimes confusing path to the High Places.

There is something important about creating with our hands and building something tangible that we can carefully preserve: a journal, a piece of prose, a poem, a piece of art, etc. We need something to refer back to and strengthen our memory of these important moments. Each creation we build or craft is like a stone from the altar. We can reflect back on the memories they stand for, and step up on those truths and promises as we meditate on them.

A real flesh and blood example of someone who recorded his pivotal moments is King David:

“I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds.” Psalm 77:11-12

David sure had a lot of pivotal moments in his life, fighting giants and being hunted by a crazed King, and of course the whole incident with Bathsheba and Uriah. And now all these years later, we have the blessing of his recorded memories and miracles in the Psalms!

When the days become difficult and full of disappointment, heartache or despair it can be difficult to recall these events on-demand under all that stress. But we can easily remember to go to our “pouch of stones” and look at all the promises we have collected, all the times God spoke to us. We’d see all the answered prayers, remember all the times that God pulled through for us. And we’d remember how profoundly loved and well cared for we have been over all these years; another promise kept! We will be filled with courage to keep trusting, to keep going. Each stepping stone lifting us higher, making us stronger.

Our hinds feet are developing as we travel to the higher places with God.

We can stand firm on these promise-filled stones because we remember what He has done and we know that He is able, and He is good, loving and trustworthy to provide the very best for us.

"The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. Psalm 18:2”

Be encouraged today my friends: record your memories, collect your stones, and craft them into something you can hold on to.

Let Jesus lift you up and hold you strong!

Mixed Media Art, Promises, Watercolor, EncouragementMerri LewisSeptember 27, 2024promises, remember, stand strong, courageComment

Joyful Imperfections

You may have noticed I paint a lot of landscapes with reflections. That’s because of how much fun it is to do, especially when it actually looks like it is a reflection when it’s done :)

My most recent landscape painting I call “Joyful Reflections”.

My goal was to paint a scene that evokes feelings of joyfulness, so I chose warm colors to add to the trees and shrubs, since they are known to cause the viewer to have happy feelings float to the surface. It is also fun to change up colors you’d expect to see in a landscape, and they provide a nice contrast to all of the cooler greens and blues.

For the image being reflected, I wanted to add more detail to help it stand apart from the reflection.

So I added some scribbles and stipplings to give definition to some trees. That was an exciting kind of scary thing to do because I didn’t want to ruin the painting and you can’t undo a micron pen!

But I had no intention of it being perfect. Loose, free and fun is what I was going for! Without that, where is the joy?

Once I had the main picture done with the background detailed and the girl and kayak in place, all the focus was to the right of the painting. I needed something to balance out the left side.

I love Claude Monet’s Water Lily Pond painting. so I thought I’d try to add some lily pads and water flowers to the surface of the water. .

I used gouache and my favorite iridescent sparkly watercolor to help the pads and flowers to stand out from the reflection.

How fun is that? These photos don’t really capture the effect as well as viewing it in person, but the lily pads are quite fun!

Don’t you want to play hopscotch on them to get to the dry land?

The final piece achieves the goal of being joyfully magical!

It has some things I wish I could change, like the purple tree from being in dead center of the painting, but this painting was never about being perfect, it was about having fun, experimenting, and painting some joy.

When we get hung up on perfection, creativity runs right out the door. This paintings very beginnings were born out of a technique that eliminates a lot of control. By using it, you make random leaf-like patterns by pressing crumpled saran wrap into wet watercolor and wait for it to dry. Doing this left behind the neat textured background that I used to shape the trees and bushes.

The saran wrap technique leaves a lot up to chance. It does not create a perfect mirror image from the top half to the bottom. The painting started out perfectly imperfect! I worked from that first layer of playing with textures to come to this final painting.

The imperfections that result are born out of joyful creativity, experimenting, and having fun playing with new techniques.

Sometimes you just need to let go of “just right” to jump into the relaxing, fun flow of the art.

I would love to hear from you! Please comment below, or by email (merri@artsandblessings.com) or for quicker interaction with me as well as with other readers, post your comment on my facebook page! I can’t wait to hear from you!

Landscape, WatercolorMerri LewisJuly 10, 2024watercolor, landscape, joy, reflectionsComment

The Sounds of Nature

A neighborhood pond with ducks lined up to swim — Mermaid Pond

Look closely! (click to enlarge) The ducks are lined up on the edge of the pond by the dock. They look like they are ready for a swim meet!

Serenity Pond Original watercolor painting. Pond with mallards — Serenity Pond Original Watercolor Painting

When I saw a picture of a pond like the one above, I loved it, I thought it was so beautiful and I longed to go there.

But it was missing something… no one was there to enjoy it. Not a bird, not a boat and no mermaids—believe it or not! Nothing at all to soak in all the serenity which is calmly waiting to be enjoyed. So in my version of the picture, I added some mallards and sent them off by two’s to have adventures together (the buddy system is still important!).

At the end of our street, there is a place called “Mermaid Pond”. Well, at least that is what we call it. Many years ago, our neighbors created the pond at the bottom of the hill in their yard. It is a pretty good size pond—big enough to act as a neighborhood ice skating rink. They also added ducks and geese to the pond, so it is a lot of fun to sit on the small bench and watch them play. Sometimes there is a spash with no obvious explanation so clearly, it is caused by mermaids being almost caught as they ducked back down under the waters surface!

There is a stretch of a wooded swampy area off to the right of the pond, and it is filled to capacity (or so it sounds) with bullfrogs, tree frogs and toads, and various other amphibious creatures. And ticks (and mosquitos), so I’ve never personally explored that mysterious and mucky area.

Walking on the side of the road by that stretch, with all those woodsy sounds and the occasional splash and quack, makes it seem like we’re entering a secret getaway spot.

The sounds of nature can transport you to another place, if you let it. They can take you away to savor the serenity, to soak in the creation, to observe the reflections in the pond, to watch the trees eagerly wave with the wind, and to capture each moment we have, each one a gift to marinate in the joys of Gods imagination and creativity!

Each minute can be celebrated because that minute is once-in-a-lifetime event! Each one is for us to have and enjoy to the fullest as it comes.

So why not take the time to use our gift of imagination to dream and ponder a peaceful, serene world where the mermaids joyfully splash just out of sight? Where trees conduct the chorus of the melodic voices belonging to frogs and ducks, geese and toads?

I wonder what the lyrics to their song would be?

Landscape, WatercolorMerri LewisJune 28, 2024serenity, creation, joy, mallards, ducks, frogsComment

Painted Skies: Wrapped in Light

“. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”

— Psalm 19:1

We recently had the privilege of seeing the Aurora Borealis! I have always wanted to see the northern lights, but never expected to actually get the chance!

You may remember from this last winter that I had watercolor painted a series of pictures (see photos below, or click here to see the options in the store) of the northern lights. Those pictures don’t even come close to the level of amazing that the skies God painted a few weeks ago! I am still in awe of having been able to witness it!

To be outside in the darkness and yet be surrounded by the most glorious display of God’s handiwork and His creativity—it reminded me of a baptism of sorts. Instead of being immersed in water, I was immersed in the colors and light and love that God pours out on us.

In the photo’s I took with my phone it looks like we saw what the picture revealed, but that isn’t the case. I couldn’t see the northern lights at all to begin with but my phone could. Once I knew they were there, I could faintly see them with my eyes.

It made me wonder how often I may have been wrapped in that light; how often there is an incredible sight to behold without knowing it, even as it envelops me! I wanted to look back at my photos and see if the fluorescent colors show up when I didn’t expect it, but you know what? I just don’t think of taking a photo of darkness very often.

“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?”

— Psalm 8:3-4

We may only get to see the Aurora Borealis once or twice in our life-time, but God paints the skies for us in so many ways. Each one a testament to his love that he would share with us. An example of a little of His beauty and His creativity! I can not wait to see what Heaven’s skies will look like! I am sure our earthly bodies can’t bear the intensity of light, beauty, and vibrant colors that He has prepared for us!

The song “Overwhelmed” by Big Daddy Weave has always reminded me of the overwhelming beauty of all He created, and especially of the northern lights. If you haven’t heard that song before, hop on over to YouTube to have a listen. You will not be disappointed! (But you may be Overwhelmed! :)

Here are some of my favorite watercolor painted skies:

“For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”

— Romans 1:20