"The Anatomy of Me: A Self Portrait" - Whimsical Painting

"The Anatomy of Me:  A Self Portrait"     8" x 10"     Acrylic on Gessobord

Detail of Owl from "The Anatomy of Me:  A Self Portrait"

Detail from Under the Sea from "The Anatomy of Me:  A Self Portrait"

 Not For Sale

But, if you'd like to see my available works or purchase a different painting, 

please go to the tab above labeled "Gallery of Available Works" and email me.

This is a self portrait that I've been working on for some time and that should have actually been done the week of my surgery. I know it's not a portrait in the traditional sense, but it's a peek into my life, my loves, and my passions and what is here on this canvas is truer to my heart than any painting of my physical appearance ever could have been. There are pieces of this that you won't quite understand, but that's part of the beauty of it in my opinion. And some of it is easy to explain. The lantern, for instance, represents my love of camping and spending time outdoors. The whale and ocean scene represent Monterey and the Aquarium, where many of our most special memories for our family have been formed, and will hopefully be revisited very soon. After all, we still need to make up for that botched summer vacation and we still have a few weeks left to try. =)  The owl is there because, well, I just absolutely LOVE owls, and same with the octopus. By the way, the octopus is stylized because when I was younger that's how I used to draw them for my friends, per their requests, and I wanted that aspect of my life to be shown here. There are so many more details with such deeper meanings than this, the tree, the pearl, the starry night sky, the clouds and the waves crashing upon the rocks - each and every element has its place in my heart and a reason for existing in this little world I created with paint and canvas. I wish I could share them all with you, but a girl has to keep a little mystery and intrigue about her, dontcha think?

All in all I really love the way this turned out in the end - I was scared there for a moment, not sure if I could get across exactly what I was going for, but I really do enjoy the way it turned out and it was quite the challenge for me to work on as well. My favorite part of it, well, other than the hidden meanings of course, was in putting so many pieces together into the one whole, with so many small and intricate details laced throughout it, and I honestly can't wait to do something similar to this on a much larger scale, even if I have no clue as to what I would actually do it of. Can you imagine how much I could fit into a scene as large as 48" x 60" if I actually did something like this? I mean, this painting here is only an 8"x10" - not my smallest work for sure, but still pretty small in comparison. Working on something so large would be utterly amazing - and perhaps a deal overwhelming - for me to undertake, but still, SOMEDAY...

Yes, someday I would absolutely love to do a really epic and involved piece, with details that just suck you in for minutes on end until you find yourself lost in it. I've always adored works like that by other artists - it's one of the most amazing aspects of art to me really - to lose one's self in it. But first I have to get over the fear of painting on and potentially ruining such as expensive as a large canvas. I just want to make sure that what I do is perfectly defined and drawn out long before I ever put paintbrush to palette near a canvas of that size. In a way it's silly, really, because I could always rework it until I really like it, but I still struggle with that fear as much as if it were a dog with his jaws clenched relentlessly around my ankle, unshakable and completely ferocious. Why I can't shake it, or when I will, I can't really say. But I sure do hope it's soon!

Do you ever struggle with fears like this? Or even better, have you ever overcome a fear that is similar to this one in some way? I'd love to hear from you, whether it's about something you've already dealt with or are still dealing with. God tells us to not be afraid - that the only thing worthy of fear is He himself. It makes sense - as He holds us securely in His hands and I know He's given me these gifts to use them, refine them, and to harness them to help out others, including my own family. I hate not being able to let go of my fears, my worries and my anxiety. I haven't been more aware of how much of a worrier I am than at my Doctors appointment this week. No, nothing was wrong - no losing of an organ this time! Instead, I'm actually participating in a Bio-Feedback program at the Chronic Pain Center, and while I was there with my Ty, we worked on breathing exercises. Apparently most people breathe slowly, deeply and with consistent timing. Most people also only take between 8 to 12 breaths a minute. Tyler definitely fits into this category. Me however? Oh no! Not me. I breathe so shallowly, quickly and inconsistently that Ty felt like he was going to hyperventilate during one of the tests where I was working on slowing down my breaths. I can't imagine how quickly he'd pass out if he had to breathe at my speed. After all, I take somewhere around 19 breaths a minute right now, which for a person without chronic pain is rather crazy, and for a person with chronic pain it's actually pretty normal. It's crazy how much stress, chronic pain and anxiety change the way your body actually functions on a regular basis. I can't even get close to breathing as slowly as Tyler right now - it's going to take months before then!

Well, it's in moments of awareness like this that open my eyes to how much I am truly unable to let go of my fears or worries no matter what they're about. Even in my art - my go-to "stress reducer" that helps me unwind and close out the rest of the world. Well, at least knowing all this will help me to come to the place where I can actually produce change in my life, I just wish the change was already here. And I imagine this might sound silly to some of you, but I wonder if it would help me to glaze a large canvas right off the bat just so the stark whiteness of it can no longer stare me so harshly in the face? It's worth a shot. And I imagine that just sitting down and drawing something out - facing my fear head on and attacking it before it permanently cripples me - perhaps that would help. I'll let you know what works if I ever do tackle the really gigantic canvases. They just look so amazing, don't you think?

It's getting late and I should probably let you go. I hope you have a wonderful day and hey, if you can you should try to stay tuned this week - I have a few more finished works that I'll be posting up here shortly and I'd love to be able to share them with you. They're little tiny ones too! In the meantime, take care of yourself, okay? God bless!

"Sea Star" - An Ocean Wildlife Nature Painting of a Starfish

"Sea Star"     2.5" x 3.5"     Acrylic on Acrylic Paper (ACEO)

SOLD

Example of What the Frame Card Looks Like Unframed - Comes with an Envelope as Well =)

It feels like ages since my last real blog post, you know, one complete with a finished painting and all, and I can't tell you enough how much my heart has been aching to paint and write and really just catch up with you all out there. I miss you! And I miss painting and feeling that amazing sense of release at creating something beautiful all the way to completion - there's not many things in the world that feel better than that for an artist.

Now, before I go off into my tangent of where I'm at in my heart right now, I just wanted to remind you out there that February is already just about halfway over, which means that time is ticking away for you all to enter this months contest! And this is an easy one! All you have to do to be entered to win one of my original ACEOs like the one shown above (complete with FREE shipping, a Frame Card and it's own Envelope so that it's ready to frame or give away as a gift if you choose to) is to LIKE MY FACEBOOK FAN PAGE and let me know you want to enter simply by WRITING SO ON MY FAN PAGE WALL. Yup. That's it folks. It's really doesn't get much more simple than that!!!! Sooooo.... Here's the link to my fan page, so that if you are interested in being one of the THREE WINNERS this month, all you have to do is CLICK HERE and you're one third of the way done already! Woo-hoo!!! =D


AND NOW FOR THE PERSONAL STUFF...
I have to admit I'm really disappointed with myself this month so far. My hopes for this year were to create 365 paintings, regardless of how I felt or what was going on, (I mean, to a degree anyways - more than anything my hope was to just catch up when life was bad but to not have to miss too many days in a row so that the task of catching up wouldn't be so daunting), but after having missed as many days as I did this month, I feel so lost and I can't see how I could possibly catch up. I had so much momentum going for me, so much so that even my husband was excited about it, and he's a hard guy to get excited about stuff like that, let me tell ya! Lol!

My heart has been so heavy lately with the pain and setbacks and anger and all the emotions that come along with having come so far and then seeing it all ripped away in an instance because of a few mindless words that caused an intensely painful and debilitating flare. My doctors said I'm literally a textbook example of just how much words truly CAN and DO hurt you, and how much emotions play a role on your physical well-being. I've been an emotional wreck lately, and my poor, darling husband has had his hands full with me and my sense of failure as a person, and as an artist, as a mother, a friend, a daughter, and as a daughter of God. This flare has been so painful, and has given me this immense feeling of loss that's almost indescribable. I feel like I've lost everything, and have struggled with immense feelings of worthlessness in every facet of my life, even towards God.

Tyler caught me off guard today with something he said about this though, and I am really grateful for his wisdom and just straight up patience with me of late. I've been broken so badly lately that like I said I even feel like I have no worth in God's eyes. The reason for this is pretty straight forward - God created me to be a mother of my two boys, a daughter to my sweet mother and in-laws, a wife to my husband, and a friend and servant to all those I know, friends, family, and acquaintances alike. He especially has created me with a heart and a desire to serve Him in every way I can, which I was doing through our middle school ministry for which I have a great passion for the girls who are struggling so much to find themselves as they are just now learning to break from the molds their parents have put them in and find who they truly are as independent beings. God even created me with this unbelievably strong desire and passion to paint, to make a career of it, and to use it as a potential ministry when or if the time for that arises. But I'm failing so miserably at all these things. I'm not a mother. I barely get to play or hang out with my kids, let alone teach them the important things in life, like how to be patient and loving and gentle, as well as the other things like how to count and spell and write their names, or even walk for that matter. I can barely do anything with them. And my role as a wife is wretched at this point. My friends, God bless them abundantly for all they do, are doing a far better job of that for me than I am, by cleaning and cooking and helping out with the boys. I don't know what we would do without them, or without my family who have also taken on that role for me. I am forever indebted to them, and the saddest part for me is that there is no way on earth I will ever be capable of repaying them for what they've all sacrificed for me and my family, and so instead all I do is pray for them. And now even my painting, as little and insignificant as it may seem to some, although it's huge to me, has been impossible for me to do lately. My hope and prayer is to get back to the place where I am able to take over all these roles fully again, and there is hope in me that someday I will, but there is also such a great and overwhelming fear that it's not God's will for me to take on all these things again, EVER.

It's His choice - it's His choice to put me in pain so we can learn to love and serve despite it. Some people like to say Satan is attacking me, and I've been guilty of saying the same - that he's attacking me and our family like crazy, because my hardships are just the tip of the ice-burg of what's been going on in our homes lately. But really, I'm learning it's not Satan. Yes, he may be the one physically doing it, MAYBE. But it's God who allows all things, who when Job was tested ALLOWED Satan to take on that role of testing him in order to prove to Satan himself just how wrong he was to assume that Job only loved God because God had given him a charmed life. But God, in His love and ultimate knowledge is the one who allows these things to happen in order to grow us and change us into the person He wants us to be. So somehow, somehow in the midst of all this ridiculousness and loss on my end, I have to find out how to actually BE a mom, and a wife, and a friend, and a sister and daughter and servant and... Well, the list can just go on forever. But I also have to learn how to stop wallowing in this stupid entangling self-pity and ask God to pick me up off the floor and teach me to become this NEW person He WANTS me to be. This is and has always been His hope for my life. It's always been His plan for me. It's not just some hardship to overcome or some difficulty to endure for a time, it's God's PERFECT PLAN for my life. Oh Lord, help me to accept this, but not only to just accept it, but to grow into a beautifully broken testament of your unfailing love.

May the Potter's hands be with you today as well, molding you into the perfectly flawed creation that He has always desired you to be. Have you ever noticed how sometimes the flawed works of art are the most beautiful? Maybe it's just me, but I have. I love those works that while they are beautiful, they aren't perfect and they're that way because it's how their creator intended them to be. It's not so great when it's unintentional flaws, but when they are there because their creator was pleased with them that way, oh how much more desirable and interesting and beautiful those works become in my eyes. Really, it's quite the sight to behold. And you know, if you didn't know they were there, you would have thought it a beautifully intentional perfection in the work, and not a flaw at all. So my prayer for myself and for you today is this: that you will know that sometimes God wants the flaws, that He desires them in you. But don't get me wrong, He wants you to work on getting them worked out, but in HIS way and with HIS help and in HIS timing. And you know, sometimes He says no. "NO, I want that there, just like that, even though it's not perfect." For some things are put in our lives that are less than savory, and their intentions by Him are to make us more pure and useful and more lovely than ever before.

"To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Cor. 12:7-10)

I love you all, and I'm sorry if my painting posts end up being a little patchy at times, and if my pouring out of my heart becomes too real, too raw and too emotional for you. My goals are to truly be a daily painter, to post as often as my body and my heart will allow, and to let you see the real me, the me that God created me to be, right out there with no pretty ties or cover-up to make it look better, but with flaws and all so you can know that you too don't need to try to be some perfect human being, because honestly, it's just not gonna happen. So I ask in return that you please won't give up on me when things go badly for me and a week or so may go by between paintings and posts, or if I say something that offends you. I am just trying to be honest with you, and to use the voice that the good Lord gave me. I will be back Lord willing, as often as I can posting my attempts at daily painting as long and as often as I am able. =)  Today hopefully marks the restart of my daily painting journey once again, and I hope that you are still up for joining me on this rather interesting ride. I also hope you're having a fantastic day and I want to thank you for listening once again to my rather epically long posts - we might as well face the fact that I'm a rambler... Always have been, always will be. =D Lol! Well, have a good one, my friends! I hope to see you all tomorrow. =)

"The Strong Silent Type" - An Ocean Wildlife Painting of a Shark

"The Strong Silent Type"     5" x 7"     Acrylic on Museum Quality Claybord

I am just so in love with painting ocean wildlife right now! I'm not exactly sure why I love it so much, but for some reason if I had to paint only one single subject for the rest of my life it would be ocean wildlife for sure. Perhaps it's all those gorgeous puzzles I used to do as a child - I think I had the whole set of them... You know, the "Seascapes" puzzles which featured Robert Lyn Nelson's art. Man oh man, those are some of the most beautiful images I have EVER seen in my entire life! I still have his puzzles buried away somewhere, waiting until the boys are a little older so we can enjoy doing them together (and honestly, mostly so they don't eat up all the pieces. Silly boys!). Seriously, I can't wait to dig them out and go to town on them together as a family!

Perhaps, however, my love of painting ocean themed work is just my simple love of the ocean. I prefer the "cold water oceans" more than anything else (possibly because I've never seen any other kind out here on the freezing San Francisco Coast, well, other than Seattle's coast, which is even colder!) and I seriously think there is little more beautiful in the world than the waves crashing against the shore and the feeling of soft sand between my toes.

And I know for a fact that all of our visits to the Monterey Bay Aquarium has a huge part in my love of painting these works too, as I've said before many times. But either way, I just love painting sharks and octopuses and all sorts of ocean creatures, like jellies and starfish too, and really had a blast painting this long awaited shark painting (on my part that is!). Then again, it was a little mind wracking too...

I really wanted this to be a more subdued, moody painting, where it looked more like a true glimpse of a shark in the murky waters of the ocean, on his own turf. I was hoping to make him look a bit foreboding, trying not to use any truly vibrant colors. But I'm not exactly sure if I went a little too far with it or not. I mean, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out in the end, but the true test is how others view it. That's an entirely different matter altogether. Then again, I guess that's true with any work of art. You never know what people will really like, and what might be your favorite might make others cringe, while the one work you absolutely abhor gets sold the instant you post it on your blog. Sometimes it can be so mind boggling how these things work...

One thing I do know is that I had a ton of fun with all the glazing of this piece, especially building up all the layers of kelp and water. The shark was a bit rough going there for a while, but in the end he turned into a shark, and I can't ask for much more than that! =) And the final glaze of paynes grey with a little baby blue, cream, and I think pthalo blue and burnt umber as well, was quite the experience, let me tell you! Nothing is quite as nerve wracking as covering your entire painting with a thick glaze, and then sitting back hoping you get the results you were going for because if not, you totally just ruined all your hard work.

Well, to be quite honest though, in times when you're debating whether or not to glaze I say it's good to just go for it, because you never know if that final little touch is going to take a piece from mediocre to something absolutely incredible in an instant. And even if it does the opposite, you can always go back and try to make something beautiful from the ashes, rather than just give up, as with all things in life. I feel like that's where I'm at right now with everything in our lives right now. I have this choice to be overwhelmed with all that's happening to me medically, emotionally and spiritually; with this glaze that's been washed over me making me look and feel like a completely different person than I was two years ago, and I can either learn to embrace it and fall in love with the new "me" that I am, or I can fight it and lose all the potential beauty that God is trying to build up in me through all these trials.

Wow, I'm sorry, I went on WAY longer than I meant to on this post, but I don't know, we're just dealing with so much right now and the only time I seem to get out of the house is for all my millions of doctors appointments and that's about it. Seriously, I just got majorly excited about getting to go grocery shopping yesterday, because it's the first time I've been somewhere "non-Kaiser" in FAR too long. So my outlet is this blog, and you, my friends, are the best listeners ever (that is, granted you made it all the way to the end here... If not, I totally don't blame you, not that you'd know it if I did anyways, because you'd have no idea I even wrote all this in the first place! Lol!)!

Well, thank you all for listening and I hope that if the case is that you are being "glazed over" right now through trials and difficulties galore like we are over here, that you will try to find some peace in knowing that in the end, even if it's scary and you don't know how things may turn out, that there is a chance for there to be so much more beauty and wonder in your life because of it than you ever could have imagined before, you only need to embrace it and not fight the change. Easier said than done, believe you me, but it's well worth the effort if you can get there. With the help of the Lord, my amazing family and friends, and in particular a very wise and Godly woman who has been a great encouragement and witness to me in this time, I sure am trying to do this the right way!!! I  really thank God for her and for everyone God has brought into my life who has helped us through all of our difficult times, for we are so blessed by all of you, and it's my prayer that you all have someone to mentor you and help you be a better person.

I prayed for two years for someone to come into my life to help mentor me because I so desperately needed it and guess what? I got TWO mentors, not just one! I am dying to meet with one of them again - we only got to meet shortly, but I know God has some major plans for the two of us, and I know he will use her greatly in my life (and hopefully use me a little in hers as well) to grow me and help me to become more gentle, calm, loving and Christlike. And my other mentor who I've been trying to meet with somewhat regularly is also exactly who God had planned for me all along - she even has a nerve disease much like my own and is helping me and my family to cope with all these crazy painful changes in our lives. And what's funniest about all of it is that when I asked her, I didn't even know her a tiny bit, but in all the time since that I've grown to know her, even as short as it's been, she has shown me so much about embracing the fact that I am not who I once was, but that it's okay to not be the "me" I used to be, so long as I can find joy in that and show love to others as the new "me" that I am now. I have to find new ways to love and serve and bless those around me, and it's not going to be easy (I've had so many ugly, despairing melt-downs over this it's not even funny), but it's my life and I can and will find joy in it because I know in the end that it's what God has had planned for my life all along, even before I was in my mother's womb. I'm Melissa 2.0 as my mentor endearingly calls me, and I love her for it!

I know I've totally talked your ears clean off by now so I'll leave you be (FINALLY, right?! Lol!), and I'm sorry again for the epically long post! I seriously hope you have a great day my friends, and that you can find the joy and peace in each and every circumstance thrown your way! =)

After all, "We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord, even as we put our hope in you." (Psalm 33:20-22)