Category: Art

A Lenten Invitation

Depending on your experience with church traditions, you may or may not care that the season of Lent begins today. If it’s not something you’re familiar with, Lent is the 46 day period preceding Easter Sunday that begins on Ash Wednesday. You’ve probably heard of Lent as a 40 day period of fasting (people often choose one thing to “give up” during Lent, like meat or coffee or chocolate), so 46 days seems like church people are bad at calendar math. The old traditions of Lent required some form of fasting every day except Sunday, so the “extra” 6 days are the 6 Sundays between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday. Lenten fasting in current traditions varies by church denomination if it is observed at all.

I grew up going to Baptist churches, and that’s still where I attend, so I’m not as familiar with Lent as a regular yearly practice, but I think it’s a lovely tradition that focuses on spiritual discipline and preparing our hearts for Easter in the same way that Advent looks forward to Christmas. Several years ago, I led a group that focused on creativity as a way to worship God and study the Bible, and I wrote some creative journaling prompts for the group Lent. Rather than fasting, we decided to focus on the spiritual discipline of daily Bible study in the 40 days (plus the 6 Sundays…) leading up to Easter.

For a whole lot of reasons, this year I want to share those prompts with anyone who’d like to journal through Lent and build a practice of daily Bible study. Each day’s prompt has a short Bible passage to read and then something to write or draw in response. I’ll share each day’s prompt here on the blog as well as social media each morning. I’ll use #artoflent on the social media posts if that will help you find them. As I update this site and my e-mail list, I’ll point you to options to sign up for a daily e-mail version. (My goal is to have that worked out by the end of the week, but in the interest of being honest, there are some other things that need to take priority over blog work.)

If this turns out to be something you love, please feel free to share the prompts if you know someone else who might enjoy them. As always, I’d love to see what you create if you are willing to share it. You can comment, tag me on social media (also use #artoflent), or e-mail me at mabbat@gmail.com if you don’t want to share publicly. Even if creative work isn’t your thing, I pray that the verses each day will draw your heart to meditate on God’s word and the sacrifice of Jesus that is the focal point of church Easter traditions, regardless of denomination. I pray that this Lenten Season will be a time of renewed spiritual discipline and deeper faith. And I’m planning to return to regular content posting after Easter.

Friday Fun

Friday Fun

The tiny human usually uses every opportunity that the week of Halloween presents to wear a different costume. In years past, she has requested a family themed costume for our church Harvest Festival, some sort of princess-y something for her dance class, a book character obscure enough that we have to invent the costume for school dress like your favorite book character day, and something completely different for actual Halloween.

This year, she only wanted one costume: a black dog wearing a pink tutu that looks like her dog as a ballerina. Easy enough on the costuming end: black clothing, pink tutu, store-bought headband, gloves, and tail. Done.

Except…

There is no such book character that we know of that fits this description. I’m sure I could have scoured the interwebs and found something, but she also wanted the character’s name to be Moe, like her black dog.

We decided to write a book this week to go along with her costume, so here for your Friday Fun is:

Mia and Moe’s Halloween PartyDownload

Life with Moe is always an adventure, so getting to the Halloween party involves a few detours.

We didn’t have time to illustrate the whole thing, so maybe soon we’ll be able to draw more pictures to go with the story. Most of the story is the tiny human’s idea. I edited a tiny bit and wrote the text out. All of the drawings were from very clear tiny human specifications, and she was pretty excited about our work once she saw it come together in print this morning.

With so many of our activities put on hold this year, this was a fun moment to create together and enjoy a new thing for Halloween this year.

I hope the tiny humans in your life will have fun with Mia and Moe’s Halloween Party adventure.

WIP Wednesday – 7/29/20

I like to process what I read when I study the Bible several different ways when I have time to really dig in. I try to read a commentary to see new angles, I take notes, and then I write and draw something that expresses what I learned and need to apply.

Today’s WIP is my doodle-notes page from Colossians 3. The text of what I wrote is below the picture.

I stand here every day in front of this closet and consider all the things I have to wear. I examine the clothes and think about how they will fit my mood or my activity or the way my body feels today. But really, I make a choice every day about what I put on and what I take off and what never even makes it to my closet for consideration in the first place. I must choose mercy and love and humility and kindness.

I must take off anger and greed and envy like dirty clothes and leave them in the heap of things that no longer suit this new creation of Christ, bathed anew in morning mercies.

Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us together in perfect harmony.

Colossians 3:12, 14

WIP Wednesday 5/6/2020

This week’s WIP is crochet. This will end up being a scarf with an oversize cable down the middle. Those weird ladder looking spaces will actually be crochet chained up the middle when it’s done, so it won’t be so wide and strange.

If you’re wondering how the shawl from a few weeks ago turned out, I didn’t love it as a window scarf. I put the chair shawl on the window like a valance and the new shawl on the chair. I’m always cold, so I end up wrapped up most morning and evening when I write.

*Bonus shawl detail: adding buttons is the greatest new thing I learned. I put two on each end of the new shawl. I can button the ends to make loose sleeves and keep it on my arms but loose on my body. Or I can wrap my core and button it together at one shoulder without the awkwardness of trying to keep it wrapped when I move. Yay for buttons!

WIP Wednesday 4/1/20

This week’s art project is more of a community health project, and certainly not something I would have guessed a few months ago that I’d be taking on. I’m sewing cotton fabric masks, right now for people working in healthcare facilities and my essential coworkers. I’m sure at some point very soon, I’ll be painting more again, but right now, this is more important. I’ve definitely learned some new tricks on efficient production, and I feel like I’ll have that honed in even more by the weekend. This may not be art to most people, but sewing is creating, and I’ve certainly learned some new-to-me creative techniques this week.

WIP Wednesday 6/26/19

Self portrait in buttons.

I have taught art at our church’s Rec Camp for the last several years, and I’m always looking for new techniques to make sure I don’t do the same things every year. This year involved not a single drop of paint, but we did a lot of gluing.

WIP Wednesday 6/19/19

This blanket took approximately 6 years to finish. It’s not anything fancy or large, but it languished in craft purgatory for several years. And now it’s finished!

I have a ridiculously hard time finishing projects. Sometimes it’s just that life changed, so my free time available for something changed, which is mostly what happened to this blanket. I also have crafting ADHD and tend to start something and get super excited and invested in it and then run off to another exciting technique before I’ve finished the other projects.

One of my goals is now to finish all the open projects before I start a lot of new ones. I’d like to say I’m a reformed crafter and haven’t bought more supplies while I work through the old ones, but I’d be lying. I have improved on my habits, though, so I’ve been buying less and finishing more.

I guess I am as much a WIP as the million bits of yarn and sewing and painting supplies scattered in my craft room (I mean dining room…).

Sunday Psalms 6/16/19

I love poetry, and I love sketching. Blackout poetry is the best of both worlds.

This is a page from an old book given to me by a friend, who gave me her blessing to toss it or use it any way I saw fit. I generally have a hard time altering a book in any way because I feel like the work of writing is a little bit sacred, and it always felt like dishonoring the pages to do anything but read them.

The joy of creating with the pages of this book is that I have another copy of the text, and so re-using the pages rather than just throwing away the falling apart copy will breathe new life and creativity into the words on the page. So far, this old book has been used by art students to create mixed media pieces, and then they used pages for drawing paper once they finished those pieces. I jumped in on the doodling and created this work.

Consider that art is coming forth at his command.

Alas!

Happy are we when we create.

It is our duty.

Wheel You Be Mine?

I'm Hooked on You

Maybe you guys are all on top of things, so our classroom Valentine’s Day cards are all ready to go.  If, like me, you barely have your crap together most days, here is my Valentine for you.  Several years ago I doodled around with some truck puns and sketches, but I never did anything with them.  This year is special because I dug them out and got them done thanks to Adobe and an accidental late night work session.

We had purchased gummy bear Valentines for the tiny human’s class, but then I realized that several of our friends keep kosher and can’t have the gelatin.  Enter Plan B.  I printed these off so my tiny human can fill in the names and then color them any way she wants to for her friends.  They’re not fancy drawings, but they are great for coloring with small hands or big crayons.

So, if you need an idea, and you like trucks, have at it.  There’s a pdf file in the hyperlink below that has 14 designs in a single printable file.

ALL Truck Valentine Cards

WIP Wednesday 2/6/19

I started this lovely lady months ago, but I let fear and business get in the way of finishing this one for a long time. Have you ever been afraid to mess up, so you just didn’t do anything? I think we’ve all been trapped by that at some point. What are you working on? I’d love to see what you’re up to!