memories | goodthoughtsgoodlives.com

This past Christmas, I painted my daughter this picture of an old abandoned church. I wish I had started it much sooner as there were some things I would have done differently. She loves old buildings, barns, churches, etc.

She loved it. She said looking at it made her feel peaceful. As I was painting it, I kind of felt the same way.

I love old buildings, barns, churches myself. My heritage is southern even though I was brought up in Michigan. When I was growing up, my parents took us to visit our relatives every summer. I have such wonderful memories of time spent with my grandparents and my cousins.

But my grandmother always thought I would die up in “the cold north”. I was a skinny child and she was always fattening me up to survive the Michigan winters. She even made me eat garlic. But she knew what she was doing and now we know that food has all kinds of healing and medicinal benefits.

If I could do one thing over though, I would have bombarded her with questions. I would have paid more attention to how she cooked, how she gardened. As a young woman, I wish I had moved south for even just a year so I could have followed her every move. What a wealth of knowledge I would have obtained.

My grandmother was “whole clean-eating food” kind of woman long before it became a thing. She could make anything from nothing. She had to. She could have started Pinterest all by herself. I sure hope I’ve inherited some of her attributes.

My grandparents were sharecroppers. Yep. They never even owned their own home. But my mother used to tell me they ate better than any other family around even though they were the poorest family around.

We attended a lot of special church meetings. It seemed like there was always a potluck going on for some reason or another.

So maybe I was thinking of a particular church when I started painting this picture. I’ve had lessons in watercolor painting but not acrylic. I find I apply lots of layers when I paint. I like putting on and taking off paint.

I never have a plan. It just kind of evolves. The sky in this picture is a good example. I can’t even remember what color I started with. There must be a least ten or twelve layers. I just keep going until I like it.

The fence, however, was a “one and done” kind of thing.

The flowers were many, many layers. They were too pink and then they were too gold so I just kept layering.

It was supposed to be an old church so I sanded over the paint on the roof while it was still wet and added some brown.

If you look closely at seven and eight you will see I added lots of texture to give it a stucco look.

The cross shows up better than it does in the final painting. I wish I could have captured a better shot of the final project but I was under the gun and had to hurry and get it wrapped.

If you look closely, you will see I made a wood frame, also a last-minute thing because I didn’t have time to get it framed the right way. I see it in a wide white distressed wood frame, don’t you?

Just so you know, the frame of the church is intentionally skewed. Didn’t want you to think I just didn’t know what I was doing.