An arteest.

I mentioned in my earlier post that Mikey just had his last art class today. He took a 2 day a week workshop for the past two weeks from this AMAZING artist that we have come to adore. We met her for the first time down at Spirit West Coast last month in San Diego, but turns out she lives just a few miles from us. :-) I love this woman. Never have I met a more talented, God-loving and God-serving artist in my life.

Well that day we bought two of her paintings. We must have visited her booth 12 times that day in between concerts, and we loved ALL of her artwork so we couldn't decide what to get. So we started out with this cool patriotic painting that she had actually just painted the day before (at SWC) that Big Hunk loved. We immediately took that out to our car and pondered our next one. lol It was a hard choice!

She had so many others that we LOVED. Several different types of Jesus' profile (my favorite being one that was red, green & yellow- very me); two separate paintings of a boy and a girl on their knees praying; a beautiful painting with a monarch butterfly... We seriously were giving ourselves ulcers. Well, after our gazillionth visit we finally made up our minds. We had decided on this:



A picture could not even begin to do it justice. I fell in love with it at first sight, but you can't truly appreciate it and all it means until you watch this. (Seriously. Watch it! ;))I was in complete awe and love with it from that moment. It just has so much meaning. The finished product at the very very end of the video is what we have- but the video is what makes the painting so amazingly special to us. And what is even more awesome about her paintings is that every one of them has things hidden. This one, for instance, when you look at it from an angle (so that you can see the light reflecting off the glaze) has several words scratched into the surface like heaven, joy, forgiven, etc. It's so beautiful. Other paintings are painted over pages of the Bible, or have mustard seeds painted into it, among other things.

So naturally, when we found out she was doing summer workshops for kids, we couldn't pass it up! Even if Mikey decided that he didn't like art that much after this, the fact that we'd have 4 originals of this legend made it worth it. Something we'll definitely treasure forever!

But turns out Mike LOVED his art classes and Charlene is madly in love with him now, and we may even sign him up for a second session later this summer (next week if Mikey has his choice). (When I picked him up from his first class she said she just wanted to make him cookies. lol) And he did so well!! I think he really needs to do stuff like this- get out with other kids and have someone other than his mom teaching him all the time. I love homeschooling, but I think just a couple times a week once in a while he needs this. He created 4 paintings- a Monet style of lilypads in a pond; a tuscany style with a house on a hill; a still life of a pitcher of flowers (probably his best) and a small red white and blue one of some blue stars on a white canvas. Click here to see Charlene's video from today, with Mikey on it. :) He's the cutie with the lisp. And just you try not to fall in love with him too!! (I keep watching the video over and over again, and he is so freaking cute!! Gosh I love that kid.)

If you like Charlene's work, her website is www.worshipthruart.com She also puts up new videos on YouTube and GodTube every Thursday, so you can even subscribe to those to get emailed when she has a new one. She is one awesome woman!!