Watch oil painting “Time” come alive in 2 minutes, featuring an antique pocket watch and roses
This oil painting video needed a change of music when I uploaded it to YouTube today due to a copyright claim (some royalty free music triggers a claim if uploading on some platforms). The new music changes how this painting feels. It seems to suit the way that many of us are feeling. This piece has a lot of dynamics and unexpected key changes, changing chaotic tempos, piercing alarming notes, yet there’s a hint of wistfulness, almost hope even. That sounds about right for how 2022 is going so far!
Compare it to the original music in the video below, which has a vastly different feeling. This bold piece has a tone of mystery, intrigue, reflection, and suspense. By the end, the music shifts to be somber and longing for the past.
These are interesting and challenging times. Why were we born for this particular time? What can we contribute? God bless and keep you, this day and always.
This one has been updated with different music and uploaded to YouTube. I’m slowly working on getting all of my oil paintings on YT. I’m also headed into a busy and productive week. I should have another new painting to share and I might have the first episode of the new show done too. We’ll see what the week brings! I hope you have a peaceful day and are feeling good about the week ahead. God bless you and your family.
Watch this oil painting “Tribute to Truckers” come alive in about 1 minute (time lapse)
I’ll add this one to the site soon. I wanted to get it out there fast so it’s only on 3rd party platforms for now (YouTube, BitChute, Rumble, and I might do a couple more). May the Freedom Convoy stay safe and send the message that the abuse must end.
This oil painting was inspired by Psalm 36: 5-7 “Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies… You, Lord, preserve both people & animals…. People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.”
Sometimes I go looking for inspiration by trolling through my memories, searching for Scripture, looking at photographs, or by making lists of things that I feel would fit the collection I’m working on. That was true of the “Wings of Heaven” painting. I wanted something sky related and I looked for Scripture to give me ideas.
Other times, I paint from the heart after hearing music that stirs me, upon recalling a person or event, or after seeing something historic in the public sphere. What’s interesting is that it doesn’t seem to matter if I paint from my imagination, from looking at a personal photo, if using a stock photo as a reference, or any other source of inspiration- it makes no difference to YOU, the person I’m communicating with through my art.
I’ve found that you will respond to some paintings more strongly and intimately than others, but you are all very different in your tastes. You do not respond differently based on what has inspired me, or anything to do with me. Well, except for those of you whose spiritual strength is tied to empathy and therefore you respond more strongly to what you sense is meaningful to the artist… but that’s not because the art itself jumps out as “better” than the other works. It’s because of how you connect to others.
I have found it frustrating that I can’t predict what you want from me or plan my paintings based on what will be more popular, because I’ve found fans for virtually EVERY painting I’ve ever done, without much difference in popularity. Some of the paintings I don’t like, my own daughters will choose those instead of the ones that I think are my best. Of all the people on the planet, surely I’m the most similar to my own children- yet we don’t see my paintings the same way. How can I possibly expect to find universal agreement among people I’ve never met?
Some subjects are more popular than others, and some of my paintings have a controversial or emotional pull, but in the end, that doesn’t carry much weight when it comes to what you want to see from me. So, this has been a struggle, until I realized how off course I was in being overly concerned about what people want from me. It is a mistake I’ve made often throughout my life.
It’s FREEING to know that you don’t seem to care much what I paint, as long as I keep doing it. You will turn up as you wish, and you’ll connect with my work in unpredictable ways. One man specifically wanted me to one day paint a puffin, and I decided that it would fit in well with my plans for the 2021 collection about Nature. Another guy wanted a painting of redwing blackbirds. Several like my cardinal paintings, others like the eagles best. So you’d think that everyone likes birds then, right? No. They each had personal reasons for why these particular birds mean something to them. And, some people choose flowers. Others like angels. And many like it when I do something unexpected, like a piano or a frog.
I will stop trying to guess what you want, as your life is uniquely yours and you have your reasons for why some paintings draw you in and others don’t do much for you. You might not even know why you like certain things and feel nothing for others- you simply do or don’t. So I will keep painting and sharing, and I’ll let the language of art speak to you in your own way. It’s best for me anyway- it means I can simply paint what I’m inspired to paint, just as I’ve always done.
I finally finished my leftover project from before Christmas! Now you see why I was comparing having this painting on my easel in late January to taking down the Christmas tree late. It literally is a Christmas tree that, in canvas form, was sitting on my easel- which is in the kitchen of this small house- and staring at me every day! So, I thought by the time I got this done, I’d no longer care about it and neither would you, but the video is surprisingly cathartic to watch.
As I see the painting come alive in the magical time lapse fashion, it feels like a story. The music was rather random, but fit the emotion of the art perfectly- at least from the perspective I have at the moment. At first the music and the painting starts off as a pretty little thing, without much story to it. But then the music gets kind of odd and chaotic at the same time my video does too! What was happening during that part is that I was trying out my new tripod and my first attempt was a shambles. My head blocked a lot of the session. So, only parts of that session were usable (not a big deal, it wasn’t that important to skip ahead).
But it feels like the parts of Christmas that don’t live up to expectations, don’t go as planned, or maybe are a total disaster and are completely cut from the holiday. This year, we had plans to cook Cornish hens for Christmas dinner, but the refrigerator in the house we’re renting broke- completely dead. We had no refrigeration for weeks, as the process of getting management to send someone out, then having the repair guys say that it’s dead, and then getting approval for a new refrigerator, and then waiting for delivery people to bring it- well, it all takes time.
So for the entire Christmas week and all the way up to New Year’s, we had no place to thaw out the Cornish hens that were in our personally owned chest freezer we bought the LAST time the refrigerator went out (they repaired it that time but I knew it would simply die again later and I didn’t want to lose all our food again when it did!). The investment in the chest freezer was looking pretty wise, I must say! I froze everything I could, even raw eggs in baggies. Our food loss was very minimal.
We did buy a small refrigerator to get through this ordeal, otherwise we’d have had no refrigeration for the holidays (just the freezer). The mini fridge is too small for thawing Cornish hens, so that carefully laid plan for Christmas dinner fell apart. Because of this, I came up with Plan B, which was better than Plan A and will now be a regular thing, a new family tradition. I went with a Christmas morning breakfast that becomes a brunch as the morning turns into afternoon.
I had purchased a warming server to use over Thanksgiving and I realized it would be perfect for using on Christmas. So, here we have an example of how everything fell into place, but only after the frustration and stress of the broken refrigerator, which brought unpleasant emotions forward. I’m weary of living in a small rental house, but our life circumstances will keep us here for at least another Christmas, probably two.
I’ve had much worse cancellations of Christmas. It would take much more than a broken refrigerator to stop me from celebrating. There was the Christmas when Dad was terminally ill from cancer and I was dropped off at another family’s Christmas gathering while my parents were in the hospital for Dad’s chemo treatment.
I was fifteen years old and I remember feeling such awkwardness and humiliation to be the unexpected guest, sitting there while the family was exchanging presents (a large extended family gathering, most didn’t know who I was). The hosts (the only people I knew, friends of my parents) apparently felt compelled to wrap something up for me, and this was worse than if they didn’t. Or maybe not. That would have been horrible too, if sitting there overlooked and ignored. There was really no way to make things better. While strangers smiled at me while their eyes were filled with pity, I fumbled to unwrap whatever it is that they gave me as a token present. I don’t remember what it was.
Dad was hairless then and vomiting during meals. Mom wanted us to pretend we didn’t notice, so I was expected to eat normally even though vomiting noises were only a few feet away, as Dad was hurling into the kitchen sink while we ate. Nerves of steel, that’s what I had. Sometimes it makes me appear cold and detached, but that’s only how I get through a crisis.
We can never guarantee how we’d act in a situation, but in my own family- the one I’ve built as an adult- we are open and honest. I cannot imagine the dysfunction of expecting my children to eat normally while something that traumatic is happening. That’s just a snippet of course of what it was like to grow up while Dad was dying. Mom’s gone now. Otherwise I’d not feel comfortable saying even this much.
So, that’s Christmas for some of us. There are seasons of grief, dysfunction, anxiety, stress, and feeling alone even around others. I am always mindful of this when Christmas rolls around, and I try to help others see the beauty that I do- Christmas is a time marker. We are only asked to “be”. When we do this, we greet Christmas with the hope of the new year to come, regardless of whether or not the current year was good, bad, or in-between.
Back to the video… the music then changes to a calm, sentimental rhythm. And that’s how I feel about Christmas. As it unfolds, whatever stress and expectations we had start to ease up. When it does, we may feel depleted, depressed, tired, or simply relieved. We may feel content. The pace has shifted. The world is no longer running full speed ahead, pushing us to feel something, pushing us to honor our traditions, pushing us to take time off from our regular routine. Everything’s getting back to normal. It will soon be a new year, and an ordinary day.
It may be then that we truly feel Christmas for the first time, when we see it as a pretty picture, cozy and warm with memories of the past- comforted that the past is behind us and the present is here. There is a moment of reflection, and perhaps a recommitment to our faith . We want to be safe, protected, successful, and loved. We want the same for our loved ones. And that’s what we try to express with our Christmas trees and dessert coffees. The desire for Christmas doesn’t go away when Christmas ends.
I had a productive day today. I finally finished my leftover Christmas-themed painting project! I thought I could share it with you tonight, but the video needs a bit more work and I’m tired. I’ll leave it for tomorrow. It may be difficult to care about this one, as it’s like a Christmas tree that’s been out way too long (that’s a hint, by the way).
I decided to try my new extra tall tripod that I bought for the new vlog show. I thought it would reach high enough above my canvas so that I don’t have to sit on the side and twist around to paint (like I’ve been doing), but can now paint naturally while seated centered in front of the canvas. Well, at first my head kept blocking the lower part of the canvas, but finally if I pushed the tripod very close, I could indeed sit directly in front of the canvas to paint.
The catch? I have to climb under the tripod, as the tripod straddles the painting stool. So it’s like I’m painting inside a cage, LOL! One day I’ll show you how crazy it is for me to climb inside the tripod “cage” to paint. But, it works! One day I’ll have a camera tracking system that will let me pull a camera down from the ceiling, but until then, I have to be creative. My daughter saw this setup and said, “Have you been sitting inside the tripod?” She laughed but wasn’t surprised.
See this owl oil painting come to life in under 2 minutes (time lapse)
The past few weeks I’ve been preparing for the new show series “Inspired by Natalie” vlog, uploading my painting videos to YouTube (not done with that yet, still have many more to go- I added this owl video today), re-organizing my space, learning new video editing software, purchasing upgrades, etc. But finally, I got back to work today on the actual PAINTING part of what I do!
I’m finishing the holiday themed painting I started before Christmas and set aside when work was intruding too much on family time, baking treats, etc. Since the holiday break ended weeks ago, it was a bit hard to get myself motivated to finish that one, but this afternoon I managed to put myself into the cozy and sentimental holiday mood to work on it. Tomorrow should be the final session.
After that, I’ll be on track to resume work on the 2022 collection, beyond Christmas related art. WHEW! Having that leftover holiday painting sitting on my easel is a bit like leaving the Christmas tree out too long!
It feels good to be back to work and making progress in 2022. LOL! I had to edit this blog post because I typed 2021 everywhere that 2022 was supposed to go! Hopefully winter will go by fast and we’ll soon be in a more positive season (meaning that spiritually as well as weather). Tomorrow is the middle of the week. Let’s make it a good one!
First, the above oil painting is one that I’ve shared with you several times before. I’m happy to report that this one was already on YouTube and the music had no copyright issues, so all I needed to do is add the subscribe and video links at the end. I got off easily today! Now for my update:
The vlog show is still a GO, but it is slightly delayed. I discovered that I needed to order a new tripod that can extend taller. I tried balancing my current tripod on some soup cans, but that was, predictably and obviously, problematic and an accident just waiting to happen! Rigging something rather foolish is not the right way to launch the new show. So, there’s that. But also I learned that my green screen is a little bit too narrow. I need to buy a second one so that there is no shortage of screen on the edge.
These little tweaks are causing a small delay, but that’s not a big setback. I have a lot of other work to catch up on, like the ongoing project to upload my painting videos to YouTube and edit those that trigger copyright issues. I also had a backlog of things I didn’t finish before the Christmas break, like leaving a holiday themed painting unfinished and my palettes full of heaped up dried up paint that is proving tedious to clean. I’m not a very good assistant to myself, good thing I don’t have to pay myself for such shoddy work. 🙂
Are you also struggling to get back into a smooth routine? It’s been cold and dreary here, as it is in many parts of the world. Usually February brings longer days with more sunlight and that tends to help. Hang in there, winter never lasts forever (those of you who are going through winter right now). Of course even if this is your summer, “winter” can have a spiritual meaning. This is a challenging time for humanity. May we hope for spring days to come!
When I uploaded this one to YouTube today, I was thinking about how art is a language that fills in the gaps. How can we think with both emotion and logic at the same time? How can we see the science of DNA while also seeing the divine hands of our Creator? The painting of the baby in this video is just blobs of paint, but when arranged a certain way, our brains see a pattern that forms a picture, and we understand what the paint is showing us.
So many times, we try to communicate our feelings about the Miracle of Life, and it may come across as only science, or only emotion/abstract/spiritual. It may come across angry or judgmental. But what if we could express ourselves in colors and movement? Maybe then we could express harmony, passion, and a true love for humanity: goodwill and sovereignty for all living beings.
Here’s the painting video I uploaded to YouTube today, as part of my ongoing project to upload my art to that platform. This time, the music didn’t trigger a copyright claim, so I didn’t need to make any changes to the video. The only additions are the subscribe and playlist icons at the end. Other than that, this is the same video I’ve shared with you before. But, like I’ve said many times, art changes depending on how we feel when we view it, what’s going on with our lives and in the world, and the perspective we have at that moment. Does this video feel different to you (if you’ve seen it before)? It does to me.
First of all, I have a different perspective from you because this is my son and he has grown and changed so much from the age he was in this painting. I also know that those candlesticks were my parents’, and my feelings about those have gone through several changes over the years. At the time of this painting I was in a phase in which I wanted those in regular use. It was part of my grieving process. Mom used to save the things she thought were valuable. “Save those for good” was the idea, which meant that I don’t recall her ever actually using those candlesticks that Dad had brought home from the Vietnam War. They were just perpetually “saved for good” until she died.
When I was cleaning out her room, I also found the socks I’d given her for Christmas in her drawer- brand new, never worn. I did not buy those for her to save “for good” (never!). I wanted her to enjoy the fuzzy simple luxury of warm comfortable feet. But she put the socks in a drawer. So, I thought of those socks, and the candlesticks became a symbol of never saving good things until it’s too late.
I see my face in the opening clip of this video (at the top of this blog post), and besides realizing I look much younger there (which means my face looks older), I see that my eyes are sad. I have come a long way and after a couple years of regular use, those candlesticks have only been out a few times since then. You can see one of the candlesticks in this video from my Christmas 2020 show. I think that was the last time the candlesticks were in use.
The candlesticks are now tucked away in Mom’s hutch- furniture that has glass doors for displaying dinner plates or special things. I don’t need to use them. They are a bit too fancy for our current living situation and end up in the way in our tight space. I have nothing to prove to myself or to anyone. I was fixated on certain things during the grieving process but life has a way of moving on and drawing us in. I’ve let go. It’s now fine to put the candlesticks away, but where I can still see them and use them whenever I want to, but don’t feel the need to put them in the center of our world.
I still don’t save anything “for good”. I have special things that belong to me and I don’t stash them in a drawer for someone to find when I’m gone. But there’s a balance. When I try too hard to respect the meaning in every second, I exhaust myself. It’s like whispering in a tunnel, expecting the echo of a whisper to be heard. Even if I were to yell in the tunnel, if no one is listening, my voice will still end up bouncing around and going nowhere. Sometimes I try too hard. It’s OK to care a little less, while living a little more. It is good to just “be”.
