Watch me paint this lily in about 2 minutes (time lapse).
Wishing you a joyous Mother’s Day in reflection of where you came from and who you are today. Who will we be tomorrow? If you have children, may you feel especially blessed.
My mother has been gone many years now, so I understand the sadness that may dampen this day for many of you. Time is precious. May we be inspired to live joyfully in this present moment and inspired to place our hope in the future as well.
Watch Natalie paint this art, and all 50 oil paintings in this collection (menu below)
“Lent is about giving something up, and adding something new. I mentioned earlier about learning something new, during our Easter experiences at our new Southern church, and it’s all about ‘new’. I’d been focused on Lent being about the past- repenting, letting go, pledging to change. What I hadn’t spent much thought on is that when we let go of something it makes room for something new. Repentance is also about forgiveness. Letting go is about mercy. Forgiveness and mercy frees us.
What a loving God we have, who wants us to be free! The depressing and sometimes challenging process of examining our lives and deciding what we need to change is only the beginning of the journey. We do this to prepare the way for something better, something new. It may require a leap of faith, and the journey is bittersweet, but the destination is beautiful.
I painted this in a style similar to ‘Pink Flower’, except this time my process was deliberate. I liked the layering-background technique I created almost by accident with Pink Flower, and now it is one of my signatures. I paint colorful shapes around my main subject, that I then paint over while the oils are still wet. The flower stays in sharp focus, while the background is soft, yet luminous. ‘Lenten Flower’ is one of my favorite paintings. I’d like to do more work like this.”
Lenten Flower oil painting by Natalie Buske Thomas
List of Oil Paintings in this Collection, linking to their pages here on the site, and also citing physical pages in the hardcover book: