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The Beauty of Creation (and Paint Art)

by Diane Cretin


I am often in wonder as I look at God's creation. Look at these mandarin fish - what beauty and detail! Then there are the variety of flower shapes and colors as well as the blossoms on vegetables and fruit as they grow. I walk around my yard and gardens multiple times per day, taking pictures as I go.


























I often think to myself, "Wow! We are so lucky that God loves us so much. He could have made things ugly, but instead He created exquisite beauty." I was a pharmaceutical sales rep years ago. I still remember one poster in a pediatric office - it was the letters of the alphabet and some numbers, done by close-ups of butterfly wings. I was able to find it on Amazon.



When I looked at the reviews, one comment struck my eye:

Barb S. wrote: The images themselves are AMAZING! An atheist might have trouble explaining the alphabet in butterfly wings!


When you stop and take a good look at plants and animals, God's attention to detail is astounding! I see this as more evidence of His love. This got me thinking about other expressions of God's love relating to creation.


Do you have pets? I adore our dogs. God did not have to give us companion animals. I saw one quote by Agnes Sligh Turnbill that said, "Dogs' lives are too short. Their only fault, really." I don't know about you, but my dogs give me a lot of comfort. When I am sad or upset, having a dog on my lap is helpful. And how can I not feel good when I return home from the grocery store and my dogs go crazy with joy. That is one of my best pictures when I try to visualize God's love; the adoring love my dogs have for me.



There are multiple Bible verses about God's love. Here is one of my favorites.

1 John 4:16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.


During these times, I try to focus on God's love for me in order to gain a greater sense of peace and hope. I know that no matter what I do, God still loves me unconditionally. I urge you to take comfort in that fact and go outside and look at the beauty of creation.



Now on to the art aspect of this blog. This week I originally planned to do bubble art, including making these hydrangeas, but it was a massive failure. I could not get the bubble mixture to work. I had done research and had various "recipes" to try. But none of them gave me the bubble definition - I just ended up with blobs of paint. I also had my husband try to see if he could figure out why it did not work. One day I hope to figure out what went wrong, but for now I had to revise my plan.



So I tried bubble wrap art. I cut out these shapes and brushed on paint using a sponge brush. This is my least favorite thing that we made. Olivia

decided to free hand paint rather than use the bubble wrap.



Olivia made this picture, which she called The Ugly Flower (instead of The Ugly Duckling). I love her creativity.




By this point, I was so frustrated that I took a straw and dipped it in tempera paint and swirled the end around on white paper. I used a different straw for each color. I ended up with this swirly mass of color. Then I used a link to download the Mickey Mouse head templates.





You cut out the template, turn your dry painted paper over, and trace the outline onto the back of the paper. Then cut out your Mickey Mouse heads and use them as you like. We used three on cardstock to make a birthday card for a young girl turning three.



After painting with straws, Olivia and I just started trying different colors and techniques to cover a page. We used sponge brushes and made these.


We decided to use one to make a butterfly.



You can find the butterfly wings template at this site.


Glue on puff balls and use thick string for the antennae, which you glue on the back. We chose not to add googly eyes.


Olivia will use the other papers to make things for friends and family. Then we had a family member come sit down and ask to paint. He made this quickly.



Having three of us painting together was great fun. It made me realize we need to have family art time together on a regular basis.


Here is one other quick picture we made mainly with sponge brushes. Nothing special, but fun.


One of my favorite moments was when Olivia commented that there are no mistakes when making art. However it turned out would be good. I hope she keeps that mindset.


Continued blessings,

Diane


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