Awakening To Beauty

Crooked Trees with Starry Sky, 2022

Oil paint on canvas

8” x 10”

This pretty little oil painting began its life as a test strip. The term “test strip” is sort of an umbrella term which I use to describe any number of practice pages and canvases, varying in all shapes and sizes. These practice pages give me the opportunity to test-drive different color combinations and techniques before actually committing to them on my final draft. Rather than biting my nails and anxiously wondering, “is this even going to work?!” (whatever this may be), I simply try it out on my test page. If it works, awesome! If it doesn’t, no big deal. Sometimes you just can’t beat good old-fashioned empirical experience. And sometimes something magical happens along the way. 

I love living in the country. I am surrounded by the glory of God’s creation and I have never painted so many landscapes in my life! However, living out in the woods has its disadvantages. You are far removed from a good many things. Things like convenient grocery stores, movie theaters, nice restaurants, and high speed internet are simply absent in the country. Even decent cellphone signal is hard to come by. Being hours away from these modern luxuries can be a drag but there are other things that exist far away too, things like: traffic-jams, hurry, and pollution. You can hear the sound of quiet in the country and you can see the stars. If you’ve never had the pleasure, it is truly an experience to witness the stars in the pure darkness of the night sky, away from the ambient glow of city lights. It’s as though you can see every star in the universe, all at once, and Bible verses like Genesis 22:17 start to make sense. 

“I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky” Genesis 22:17 (NIV).

I am blessed to live in such a beautiful, all be it remote, place. Sure, the nearest Walmart may be an hour away but I get to drive past forests and a cresting mountain range on my way there. Most days, I feel as though I am living in a Bob Ross painting. I am surrounded by those famous “happy little trees.” The splendor of God’s creation is undeniable here, however, there are moments when I take it for granted. It’s as though my brain becomes oversaturated and I forget how fortunate I am to live in a forested wonderland, with wildflowers, and butterflies, and a mountain in my backyard! Thankfully, these blind moments are brief and sometimes all it takes is the act of opening a door to snap me back to my incredible reality.

The inspiration for this piece came from one such reality check moment… or rather, moments. Every night, as part of my evening chores, I put our dogs out for one last potty run before bed. This is not a glamorous activity by any stretch of the imagination. It is a mundane and repetitive task but a necessary one. However, each time I open the door for the dogs something incredible happens. Every night, the opening of that door reveals the glory of God! It’s as though I am pulling back a curtain to reveal God's masterpiece. I open the door and BOOM, God’s gorgeous twilight sky is always there! Color combinations (that only God could pull off) are waiting to surprise me, like velvety midnight-blue melting into the barest whisper of pale yellow! My crooked trees are there too, with their lovely bending contours! And let’s not forget the stars - a breathtaking light show, billions of years in the making! It is all out there waiting just for me! Any one of these visual elements on its own would be striking but God doesn’t do “striking,” God does incredible! Every night, He repaints this scene and every night I am blown away by the magnificent sight that awaits me just behind the dog door.  

Night after night I experienced this revelation until finally I decided that there was only one answer, only one way to honor this awakening to beauty, and that was with a painting. Not only would I paint it, I was going to use one of my biggest canvases to do it! 

There were a number of techniques that I wanted to try with this piece. For example, I wasn’t sure if I could recreate that soft transition from deep blue to pale yellow (without turning my base layer green). There was also the issue of delicately representing the millions of teeny-tiny points of light - the stars. I was apprehensive about just jumping in and going to town on my big canvas. After all, I had been saving this one for something special. *Enter the test strip!* 

I grabbed one of my smaller canvases to use as a test strip. A little practice was just what the doctor ordered and I knew it would alleviate all of my anxious uncertainty. The first layer of my test painting was very low impact. I began with a single band of yellow paint faded out along the upper edge. I waited for several days for the yellow paint to cure before attempting to add anything else. Allowing this layer to completely dry ensured that I would not accidentally pick up any yellow with my brush and unknowingly mix it into my blue. I then added a layer of blues, transitioning from pale cobalt to pure Prussian. It worked like a charm! For the stars, I decided to take a crazy approach and intentionally splatter my beautiful sky with white paint. Using a large house painting brush from the hardware store, I smacked the back of my hand and let the paint fly! 

This was a gamble for sure but one that I feel really paid off. I was so satisfied with the result, in fact, that I just kept working. I couldn’t wait to see the next layer and the more I painted the more attached I grew to my practice piece. Somewhere along the way my practice piece turned into a masterpiece and I fell in love. 

I still plan to utilize the large canvas to render another variation of this scene. The only difference is that now, when I do, it will have a little sister :). Stay tuned to see that piece and many more!

Love you guys, have a great week!