Thursday, September 19, 2013

A Painting For Someone Who Makes a Difference EVERYDAY...

Denise is a sweet dear person who listens when God moves her and that is exactly what she did when she joined forces and began Everyday Ministries.  When I felt the nudge to paint her, I had no idea what or when until she began posting photos of Ghana.  All I knew is that I HAD to do it.


Denise does a Christmas Show called A Christmas Gathering each year in several states thru different churches, but in the Tulsa area she does a HUGE one that is wildly popular and reaches thousands of women in a unique way with holiday decorations, cooking, music and giveaways.  You can read about it on Facebook at:

https://www.facebook.com/AChristmasGathering

No one makes me laugh harder than her and her spirit is contagious.  There were so many wonderful snapshots of her in Africa, and I instantly knew how much the people there must love her as they do here in Oklahoma and surrounding states. She is a warrior for Christ and a force to be reckoned with!


This was an experiment in linen canvas paper for me.  First time to use it and anxious to see how it holds up for portraits.  It was a lot of fun to work with and I will be definitely using it a lot from now on. The linen paper will be dry press mounted on to gatorboard as soon as the project is dry enough.  Homosote makes the perfect stabilizer to pin the linen to for painting. Not easy to find, but available at a few Mom and Pop type lumber yards and worth the effort.  This was a tip I learned from Daryl Reimer when I was able to take drawing lessons from him last year.  An amazing artist you should look up!  Incredible work.


It wasn't difficult to figure out my cast of characters and decide the style I wanted this painting to be.  Denise is casual and fun, yet stylish and edgy, so I wanted the painting to capture her light and essence and here's hoping I was able to make a feeble heart felt attempt at that.


Her's is the lightest face and the center of attention in this group, and the most focused face was what I decided was needed to best represent what was happening.  Even though the woman in foreground was extremely interesting, she had to remain a supporting character to Denise in order to make the whole thing work.  


Even the clothing needed to be toned down so that Denise herself shone thru.  After several days and some last minute tweaks, the painting is finished and patiently drying awaiting varnish and its home with the rightful owner.



You can read about Denise and her work at:

http://everydayministry.net

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