His Love In Art

Allowance, Earned Or An Entitlement

2011-04-20T03:58:00.002-05:00

I remember when I was growing up, I wasn't just 'given' money for nothing, I had to earn my allowance. And before anyone wonders if it was child labor... it was. No, not really, it was simply doing my chores before I got my allowance.

By chores I don't just mean cleaning my room either. Your bedroom is 'your room' so you shouldn't get paid for that.

No, by chores I mean; cutting the grass, taking out the trash regularly, washing the dishes, etc...

The problem I see today is that kids want the money but don't want to do the work. Then they begin to think the world operates the same way. They go on believing that if they just ask for something, it will land in their lap without any effort on their part, short of asking for it.

Again, I'm not talking about breaking your child's back with work that should have been done by adults either.

I wouldn't ask an 8 year-old to move all the living room furniture outside and then have them proceed to lay down new carpet while you, the parent, sips ice tea in the front porch swing.

Instead, it would be easy enough just to ask your child to help you plant some flowers, cut the grass 'with' you or some other cleaning job that needs to be done. Sure you could have done it alone and it would have been just fine but what's the harm in asking your child for help.

Now some would say you shouldn't bribe your child to help with those type things but my thought is that if you're going to give them the money anyway... why not spend quality time with 'em as well.

It has to begin somewhere and often times people try to go from nothing to overloading their kid with a new parenting idea. I'm not saying to ask them to do twenty chores before giving them their allowance. No, start off just asking for help with odd things around the house without even mentioning the word chore.

Just remember, at the end of the day it isn't about the money. It isn't even about the job that needed to be done.

It's about parents spending time, not money, with their kid(s).

(Oh and in case your child protests that 'this is wrong' – I recommend cutting spending until they learn it isn't free.)

How To Sell Your Christian Art Online?

2011-04-15T23:42:00.003-05:00

There's a great feeling that comes from sitting down, pencil in hand, while you let the creativity flow... but then it happens. Your stomach growls from hunger and t make it worse you go to look in the fridge and discover the power is off because the bill wasn't paid.

HA yeah, that wouldn't be too much fun and I really feel sorry for anyone that it's happened to.

In all seriousness though, it's all well and good to create beautiful works of Christian art but then what? Surely you don't want to keep it all to yourself??

No... of course not. If someone offered you a reasonable amount of food, I mean money, of course you'd take it. Right?

I hope so. Otherwise there's no point in reading on.

Now I gotta tell you right off that I'm not some big and famous, "I've sold millions and YOU CAN TO" type person. I'm not going to feed you that line. What I am going to do, however, is just tell you the tips and other things I've seen that may help you out a little.

Supplies - Make sure you are using a good grade of paper and mediums. This sounds like a given but you'd be surprised. Although your Crayola colored pencils and printer paper are fine for practice work, you may want to rethink selling it to a collector.
Clean It Up - Your artwork may need touching up in any places that you wouldn't have noticed before the next step... it's about to be picture time.
CHEESE! - Well, a picture's worth a thousand words and here's where hopefully you'll take a picture that will take a collector's breath away. You want to take a well lit, high res picture and you may even want to take quit a bit of 'em at different angles and such.
Research Art Websites - Now here's where I can and can't really help you. I can name sites, yes, (Etsy being the main one I know) but that's because of the ones I researched it's the one I went with. The reason I can't recommend more is because I felt it best, and this is my advice, to not over do it by submitting work to every one you find.
Now you just sit back and continue the process of 1-3 while praying and hoping step 4 was the best one for you to have picked.

Now you may have wanted more advice and if you did I'm sorry. As I mentioned before, I'm not an Art guru or anything.

Some could say there's steps I missed but I feel like my approach is easy and doesn't require too much from someone. I've never liked feeling stressed and if you over complicate what's supposed to be relaxing and enjoyable, all you'll do is feel like it's a job when you haven't even sold one thing.

At the end of the day it's about God's will anyway. If he wants your Christian Artwork to sell, he'll lead you in the things to do and places to go. Above all the steps above, I hope you pray daily and ask God for his will in your life.

If you do that first and foremost, then that's going to be better than any advice I could have given because I base my advice on yesterdays examples but he knows tomorrow.

What is Christian Art?

2011-04-14T23:09:00.005-05:00

So you may be wondering "What is Christian Art?" or "How's it different than Secular Art?"

Well both of those are honest questions, and I'll answer them with my own opinion of course. I don't deny others may have a completely different view on them but hey, this isn't their blog haha.

Okay, so lets tackle the first question...

"What is Christian Art?"

It would be very easy to say that Christian art is just art that projects the overall theme of Christianity (i.e. God, Jesus, the Cross, Angels, etc...) and you wouldn't be wrong at all because that is absolutely true. However, since Art itself is interpretive you could go deeper with it than that.

"We shall mount up with wings as eagles, we shall run and not be weary, we shall walk and not faint..."

When I read that I almost always picture an eagle soaring in the sky, and if I wanted I could pick up a brush and paint just that... an eagle soaring over a mountain top with the lush green forest underneath. That would be my interpretation of what I felt from that scripture.

Now I could add the scripture to the picture somehow (either directly to the picture or a separate small piece of maybe card stock paper overlaying it) and it would be very nice.

In my own opinion doing that OR leaving the picture just as it is becomes Christian art because the person who drew it was focusing not only on the picture but on where the inspiration was coming from.

Now there are a few things Christian art is NOT and never will be and those things fall more into the second question...

"How Is Christian Art Different Than Secular Art?"

This one can be answered very easily.

Christian art will never glorify sin. It's that simple.

You cannot glorify sin in art and then claim it to be Christian but that point should really already be understood. The bigger thing that separates Christian art and secular art is just the artist and the audience they market to.

I'm sure some think that isn't true and I'm sure an example can be made of how I'm wrong. However, I'll give my own example of how it can be right.

I could paint a net being pulled over a row boat, filled with fish to the max (not scripture reference included with the painting) but Christians who looked at it may be reminded of how Jesus said "I will make you fishers of men."

While a secular artist could paint the very same picture but his customers be reminded of a day they went fishing with their grandfather.

At the end of the day there is a big difference between Christian art and secular but that's only when you fully attempt to make it obvious. If you make the attempt, it becomes a given. No one will argue that Jesus on the cross is Christian art.

You can , however, be a Christian who is an artist and therefore you art becomes Christian art.

New Artwork - "Count Your Blessings"

2011-04-13T19:26:00.000-05:00

"Count Your Blessings" was inspired by the thought that Easter is first and foremost about what Jesus did on Calvary. If you look closely, the blue Easter Egg has a cross in the middle and that is exactly where it belongs. The Cross should be in the center of our lives.

It is a 9x12 original water color painting but can be cut down to 8X10 if needed.

Materials:
watercolor paint, watercolor sketch pencil, 108 lb Royal and Langnickel paper

The above painting is available for purchase at my etsy store (link below) and prints will be available soon.
His Love In Art

New Artwork - "Looking to God"

2011-04-13T17:28:00.000-05:00

"Looking to God" was inspired by mother's collection of porcelain birds. For years I would see them in the china cabinet and as I sat down with my watercolors, art paper and Christian music, I decided to put God's little bird on paper the best I could.

It is a 9x12 original water color painting but can be cut down to 8X10 if needed.

Materials:
watercolor paints, watercolor sketch pencil, 140 lb cold press masters touch paper

The above painting is available for purchase at my etsy store (link below) and prints will be available soon.
His Love In Art