Kelly Jeanette Swift

Today is my birthday. My sixtieth birthday. Wow. Just wow.  When you are young you never think that you will get to this age. You have the thought that you have all the time in the world. Like the song from For King and Country says "Why are we spending time like someone is making more". I never thought that I would get to this age even though I knew some day I would God willing if the Rapture hadn't occurred yet. Isn't this a lovely full moon. The last full moon of 2023. So beautiful and bright. The kind of life I would like to have. Beautiful and Bright. The kind of light that no one could ignore (another FK&C reference). This past year went so quickly that it was gone before I could really get it all in.  So I am hoping that this next year will be better. I would love to look back on my sixty one birthday and see that I made a change in the world or at least to someone in this year. All this is by God's will alone of course.  

  Beautiful Autumn colors. You know, life is like these leaves. Beautiful and colorful. Then the wind comes and disturbs it, some leaves that becomes weak falling, but look. The tree still stands, the leaves are still beautiful, and His Light still shines through and illuminates those beautiful colors of your life.  #lifeisbeautiful   #autumncolors   #autumnleaves   #hislightshines   #waitonthelord

I was just playing with making black and white photos with some cool plants I found when I discovered a setting on my camera that makes photos look like drawings. I thought they look cool and may experiment with it some more.

These past few weeks have proven a challenge for me. I have not liked anything I have painted lately. It's been a struggle. But I have finally figured out what the issue was. I have been watching too many YouTube artists and allowing their take to influence me. Do this. Don't do that. Follow the good painting rules. Today I just decided to follow my own rules and enjoyed the painting time. No more trying to fit a artist type mold. I'm just going to paint my way and to h*** with the art rules of design and composition. This is what I started on today. Not finished but I'm happy with it so far.

As a painter I do have times when a painting is just not going for me and I just give up on and do the gesso thing over it. Too bad we can't do that with some life issues. A relationship, a job, an obligation. Just white wash over it and start over. Or we would, as I tend to do, painstakingly, try to avoid places I like. Try to save them to use in the next painting. Try to save life moments we want to keep and remember. Would white washing over bad choices, bad memories, bad events in our lives be fair to us as human beings? Aren't we the sum of all our lives, those things-good and bad-that make up us? Something to think about.