Daily Art

Daily Drawing #197, Are You Prepared?

| Whitt’s End Art

Over the course of my lifetime I have had various occupations. I have worked as retail managers, in factories and currently in a local school district. As I look back at my various jobs I think the worst place I ever was employed worked was at a fast food restaurant. I only worked there for one year but I learned a lot about dealing with irate customers as well as employees who don’t take there job seriously. You haven’t lived until you try to calm down an irate customer because of an unwanted piece of cheese or a couple of misplaced pickles on a sandwich you didn’t have anything to do with creating.

Still I look back at these times and realize how much they prepared me for later positions I have had in life. In all of life we need to look at our current employment, or training (as in sports) and think about about how much we are being prepared for what comes next in life. So take the time to prepare yourself by working hard to learn and grow. It will pay off later in life.

Daily Drawing #196, Count It All As Joy

| Whitt’s End Art

If your life is like mine there are periods of time when life feels anything but joyful. Still God calls us in James 1:2 to, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.” This means no matter what happens in life we are to call it joyful. Really? God says, yes. If you have an illness don’t dwell on it but look to God to give you comfort and peace throughout the trial. My joy and your joy comes from knowing God is always there for us and as 2 Corinthians 1:4 insures us God is the one, “who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” Our joy in life comes from helping others who are going get through the same storms we are weathering. It is hard to look for joy in times of trouble or sorrow but it can be found when your heart is in the right place.

 

Daily Drawing #195, Face 2 Face

| Whitt’s End Art

We live in a world which is linked electronically like never before. Young people interact today through tweets, texts, Instagram posts, Face Time chats a few among many choices. Still my favorite way to talk to someone is person to person. Ask my wife she’ll tell you I don’t even like to make phone calls. I have always loved to talk face to face. There is nothing more thrilling than to share a few words or laugh with someone else. To gaze across and sense the other person’s emotions through facial expressions as we talk. This is true conversation. Not a tweet or a text or whatever. God created us to be social beings who rely on fellowship with each in order to live a balanced life. It is time to put down the phones and start talking – face to face.

Daily Drawing #194, Seeing Eye to Eye is Sometimes Hard to Do

| Whitt’s End Art

There are times I like to draw things just to draw them. This is one of those times. I just thought the picture of the cat and mouse was interesting. Here are two creatures a cats and mouse who are not normally close friends. In fact most of the time a cat will play with a mouse, by play I mean bat it around and around, until it is ready to finish the mouse off. In the picture the cat and mouse seem to be conversing with each other. Maybe just  asking each other, “How are you doing on this fine day?” To which they’d both reply, “Fine,” before going a little deeper into their comings and goings since they last met. This little meeting also got me to thinking what if we could all look at each other and see through the supposed differences which keep us apart instead of playing cat and mouse games with each other. Here’s to letting God’s love shine through in all circumstances and all our interactions with the people we meet each day.

Daily Drawing #193, Taking Snapshots in the Wilderness

| Whitt’s End Art

I don’t know about you but I am obsessed with taking pictures. Over the years from my teen years till now I have taken thousands of them. Where they all are now I have some idea. Some were lost in the sands of time, others occupy old dusty photos albums and the rest are stored on a portable hard drive. There are times when I go back and look through some of the photos. Truthfully though most of them I haven’t seen in years. My drawing today is a reminder to us all while it is nice to document our lives with our phones or cameras it is also important to make sure we are not losing out on all the fun while trying to the best picture. I also think if we are going to document our lives it is better to do some videos so when we are gone others will have some reminders they can watch instead of store in a drawer.

Daily Drawing #192, Time to Cat-ch A Break

| Whitt’s End Art

My favorite part of this drawing challenge is I never know what I am going to draw. Sure I use prompts but sometimes, like today, I just draw whatever comes to mind. The drawing for today is entitled “Trying to Cat-ch a Break.” it is modeled off of the old Popeye cartoons where Wimpy always asks :I’ll pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” In the Bible God tells us in, Proverbs 21:13 ESV, “Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered.”

What does this have to do with my drawing? The answer is simple. We are called to care for those who can’t care for themselves. If this means buying someone a meal, then that is what God calls us to provide. The one thing I am reluctant to do is to hand someone money only because I don’t know what they will use the money to buy.  Instead I would give them a grocery card, or take them to an agency where they can receive the deeper help they need. The life of a follower of Jesus is all about giving.

Daily Drawing #191, Dancin’ Among the Waters

| Whitt’s End Art

Back in the day, in the prehistoric past we didn’t have water parks or splash parks to frolic in we had garden hoses to spray each other with or took a dip in the local swimming holes. Of course my neighbor had a pool but my friends and I always ended up wading in the local creek. The creek held many fascinations. There were bugs like water striders. On most days you could find minnows or tad poles swimming around in the small ponds during low tide.  In the small streams leading which fed the creek you could find crayfish like critters living under the rocks. I miss those summer days. While splash parks and pools serve their purpose it is too bad many children today will never experience the joy of going out and discovering the wonders of God’s creation.

Daily Drawing #190, Create A Good Character, Read the Book

| Whitt’s End Art

As an artist one of my favorite things to do is create a character. In this one the goal was to create a fantasy portrait. I used an old magazine ad to get my characters hair and hat and then drew in the face. She is meant to be an half elf character from a rough novel I wrote years ago. While I like the picture I am also reminded in order to build our character we can either seek our many self help books on the topic at the library or else choose the one book which has character building advice throughout the pages. The book of course is the Bible. Just reading the book of Proverbs can offer you life advice for each area of your life and that is just one book in the Bible. So go and get your Bible, open it up and start reading. The best time for getting your character drawn is now.

Daily Drawing #181, Feeling Like A Man In The Wilderness

| Whitt’s End Art

The drawing prompt for today was the word, “wilderness.” The prompt made my mind wander back to one of the songs by my favorite groups of my youth, Styx and one of my favorite songs, “Man in the Wilderness.”  The lyrics are:

‘Cause I can’t seem to find the light alone
Sometimes I feel like a man in the wilderness
I’m a lonely soldier off to war
Sent away to die, never quite knowing why
Sometimes it makes no sense at all

While the song appears to be about life on the road as a rock star. it also had meaning for me back then as well as now. I will not bore you with the details of how the song related to me back in the day . Today however, there are times as a follower of Jesus where I feel like I am wandering in a wilderness. A man all alone. I have the light in my heart but it doesn’t seem to pervade the darkness. Still I persevere, knowing God is near, and will never leave me to be truly alone.