Deli Paper

Welcome back Art Prayers. I tried  new, easy technique using deli paper for today's praying with art.  You know the thin paper they line those plastic baskets with and wrap sandwiches in at the deli. Very inexpensive and can be found in most grocery stores in folded squares or on a roll like wax paper. 

This week I decided to focus on the fruits of the Spirit for the next week or two. There is a lot of information in those verses in Matthew 

I will be taking one fruit of the Spirit at a time to focus on in prayer. This morning it was love. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind. The second love others. 

I started by applying aqua and Mediterranean blues along with a greenish blue to a scrap piece of printer paper.  I forgot the gesso so the water  in the paint caused the paper to curl. No problem though because it flattened out when it dried. 

I then mixed some dark pink with white to lighten it up and painted that on half a sheet of deli paper.

One thing I learned was that if you try to dry either the deli paper or printer paper with your hair dryer it is like fighting a mad cat. So I gave up and laid them aside to dry on their own and worked on another project.

After both papers dried I stenciled the background with a very light blue to give some texture and then set it aside to dry while I cut hearts out of the pink deli paper. This is a great use of for the deli paper since I can't draw. You can see through the deli paper to trace your heart or any other shape you want. Now I can draw a simple heart but mine are always lopsided so I thought I would try tracing. Problem is I forgot to trace it before painting it. But I lucked out and found a heart shaped container to trace around. 

I attached the heart using Matte Gel Medium, wrote God in one heart and Others in the second heart and outlined. It is all I can do to resist fixing the crooked outline but I did because the Spirit reminded me to practice what I preach about perfection. 

Here it is completed and ready to glue in my journal.

Simple, I like simple.

While I was creating and meditating I became aware that I had been understanding this to mean that I needed to try harder to love God and Neighbor, that I would be a sinner or not a Christlike follower if I didn't accomplish this. The Spirit opened my eyes to the true lesson, This is not something I accomplish or fail at. Loving God and others is a natural result of spending time with God and allowing the Holy Spirit to fertilize and prune my soul. In doing so my life will naturally produce these fruits. Big sigh of relief and smile of joy was the result of this realization. Why do we make it so hard? God must shake his head and smile lovingly at me every time I make this relationship so hard. 

Will you join me in this venture into the Spiritual gifts? I won't be blogging everyday on them but I will be sharing one occasionally. If you know someone who might enjoy praying with art won't you share this with them? 

Until next time, Blessings, 

Debbie