I painted 30 paintings in 30 days in the month of September 2015.

This is my fifth 30-in-30 challenge and each time I have completed it, I promise myself never to do it again. But who knows? There is something about making such a big commitment and following through that pleases me. I guess I’m just plain proud. There were over 1000 women worldwide participating in this challenge. There are no prizes, no recognition, no fame….just the satisfaction of completing a difficult task and at the same time learning more about painting.

Each day we posted our painting on our own website and/or blog and on Leslie Saeta’s blog; she is our “Leader” and the originator of the challenge. To see her page, click  HERE. This gave each of us a much larger audience for our work and the fun of looking at the art of the other artists posted there. Leslie encourages us to post our day’s painting on our website, blog,  Facebook page, Instagram, Pinterest or Twitter….or on all of them.

I posted the first six days of paintings on my blog earlier, so you have probably already seen them up close. I painted the first 12 in acrylic and the last 18 in watercolor, but I’ll save the watercolors for another blog. Here are the 6 acrylic paintings (the second row) which I have not posted before up close on my blog:

“Wish You Were Here”

“Evening Primrose”

 “Louisiana Sunset”

“Quiet Afternoon”

“View From the High Road, San Cristobal, New Mexico”

and

“The Ship Channel at Galveston Island, Texas”

After completing the first 12 days I decided to switch to watercolors to complete the challenge. But that’s for my next blog.

For Information About These Paintings Click Here

This is me…..every morning, feet up on my stool in my art studio…..reading. (I first must remove Tomboy Cat from the stool.) I’ve just completed reading the entire Old Testament and am beginning the New Testament….reading from the “One Year Chronological Bible” in the New Living Translation. Of course, I began on January 1 of this year and it has been quite an adventure….fully nine months reading each and every word.

This is my seventh time to read completely through the Bible, two of which were in chronological order. This is my first time to read from the NLT and it has been a unique blessing.

Many have heard the story I tell about why I began reading through the Bible. I’ve been an avid reader of biographies, historical novels, cozies, auto-biographies, history books, and on and on for years, averaging a book per week. One day I felt a strong sense of guilt that with all this experience and time spent, I had never read straight through God’s Holy Bible. Oh my! I immediately began to change that.

I continued to be inspired by such great Christians as George Mueller who, it is reported, read through the Bible over 200 times. Much the same can be said for  Hudson Taylor, Arthur Pink and I’m sure many others.

I’ve taught the Gospel of John verse by verse a few times to my classes, and have many “favorite” verses, but the one I think of frequently is

“If you remain in Me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given you.”

John 15:7

Our Lord Jesus Christ is saying here that it is primary to abide in Him, but we must also see to it that His Words “remain in us.” They remain in us, only if we know them; we know them only if we have read them. Our faith comes from the Word of God and nowhere else.

‘Til He Shouts!

“Banished”

Genesis 3: 23 and 24

“So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground

from which he had been taken. After He drove the man out,

He placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword

flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.”

This solemn and profound event speaks of the sovereignty, the power, the majesty, and the total authority of our Lord God.

Psalm 99: 1 and 2

“The Lord reigns, let the nations tremble; He sits enthroned between the cherubim, let the earth shake.

Great is the Lord in Zion; He is exalted over all the nations.

Click for Information About the Painting, “Banished”

(This painting is #6 of the series, “Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days” Challenge)

‘Til He Shouts!

“Thorns and Thistles”

Genesis 3:17 through 19

From the Holy Bible:

To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree

about which I commanded you,

‘You must not eat of it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you;

through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground,

since from it you were taken;

for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

Driving Adam and Eve from the garden was both a punishment and an act of mercy, lest they should eat of the tree of life and live forever in a state of death and alienation._______Notes from the “Ryrie Study Bible”, Charles Caldwell Ryrie”

I wanted both beauty and thorns in this painting to illustrate that although we live on an earth cursed by God, we believers in Christ are blessed beyond measure____My Notes

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.”

Ephesians 1:3

Click for Information About the Painting, “Thorns and Thistles”

(This painting is #5 of the series, “Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days” Challenge)

‘Til He Shouts!

“The Promise”

After the fall of Adam and Eve the Lord God spoke to Satan:

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head and you will strike his heel.”

Genesis 3: 15

“The “offspring” of the woman was Cain, then all humanity at large, and then Christ and those collectively in Him. The “offspring” of the serpent includes demons and anyone serving his kingdom of darkness, those whose “father” is the devil. (John 8:44). Satan would cripple mankind (you will strike his heel) but the Seed, Christ, would deliver the fatal blow (He will crush your head).”_____Notes from “The Bible Knowledge Commentary” by John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck.

Because of the cross of Christ and His resurrection, the blackness and hopelessness of sin is gone and the promise of redemption in Genesis 3:15 has come.

“But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman,
born under the law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.”
Galatians 4:4

Click for Information About This Painting, “The Promise”

(This painting is #4 of the series, “Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days” Challenge)

‘Til He Shouts!

“They Sewed Fig Leaves Together”

Genesis 3:1 through 7

 From the tangled chaos of their sin, Adam and Eve felt their enormous guilt.

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’

The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’

‘You will not surely die,’ the serpent said to the woman. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.”

Genesis 3: 1 through 7

Click Here for Information About the Painting, “They Sewed Fig Leaves Together”

(This painting is #3 of the series, “Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days” Challenge)

‘Til He Shouts!

“In His Own Image”

Painting by Adele Bower

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them”

Genesis 1:27

Words to ponder:

Human life was created in (lit., “as” meaning “in essence as”) “the image of God.”Image” (selem) is used figuratively here, for God does not have a human form. Being in God’s image means that humans share, though imperfectly and finitely, in God’s nature, that is, in His communicable attributes (life, personality, truth, wisdom, love, holiness, justice), and so have the capacity for spiritual fellowship with Him..________(Notes from “The Bible Knowledge Commentary”, by John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck.)

Click Here for Information about the Painting, “In His Own Image”

(This painting is #2 of the series, “Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days” Challenge)

‘Til He Shouts!

“In The Beginning” 

Painting by Adele Bower

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Genesis 1:1

Words to ponder:

God is the founder and creator of all life. The implications of this are great. This means that everything that exists must be under God’s control. The creation must be in subjection  to the Creator. If God was before all things and made all things, how foolish it would be to have any other gods before Him!__________(Notes from “The Bible Knowledge Commentary”, by John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck.)

“In the beginning”, speaks not of eternity, but of the creation of the world as described in the first chapter of Genesis. “God”, is literally Elohim having the basic meaning of  “strong one, mighty leader, supreme Deity.”_____Notes from “The Ryrie Study Bible”, by Charles Caldwell Ryrie.

Click Here for Information About the Painting “In The Beginning”

(This painting is #1 of the series, “Thirty Paintings in Thirty Days” Challenge.)

‘Til He Shouts,