Friday painting - not this Friday but last

After posting pictures of last weekend's paintings, I realized that I could also post pictures of what I paint during the week as well. This is the sign for Towers Mall (no big surprise), and Dante and I painted both the white support structure, and the gray around the letters.

The last picture is of Dante, who normally isn't a raccoon.

When I was a kid, I would occasionally hear about someone who had immigrated to the United States, usually as a refugee, who had been a doctor in his or her home country, who is now working as a janitor here. I always thought that would be horrible, and couldn't understand how people could do that. I'm not quite in the same position, but I have a glimpse. Sometimes I wallow in self-pity, but for the most part I just deal with it, happy to have a job, particularly since it doesn't seem as though I can find a job that pays better than painting houses.

Sunday painting

I did this very quickly, but I like it.

Saturday Painting

I still can't get the color quite right, but at least these were taken with an actual camera, rather than a cell phone.


The picture on the right was done first, with the idea that it would be the foundation for a more elaborate painting. However, I liked the way it came out, so I did a second version using the same image. The one on the right is watercolor pencils, the one on the left watercolor pencils along with acrylics and watercolors (for those of you following along at home).

Voice in the wilderness

Well, not so much the wilderness as the rapidly developing shores of Smith Mountain Lake--and I'm not there, but was there earlier today painting a dock. Some people have too much money, but for the time being I'm happy to take just a little bit of it in order to make them happy. Correction: sate their need to keep up with the Joneses. Their anxiety is reduced, temporarily, but spending money doesn't make them happy. It almost makes me want to take Paul's advice and go get a PsyD so I could tell them that to their faces while taking even more of their money.

What I really wanted to write today was that I gave another sermon at Eldorado a couple weeks ago, but probably won't post it. It wasn't one of my best, and I'm not sure that even my best sermons are necessarily worth posting (although I'm willing to post because I don't think anyone would plagiarize me). The thing that struck me, though, was that they missed the point of the sermon, which was about being obedient to God--maybe not the best topic for Unitarian Universalists. But the story I used was 1 Samuel 15, and they were too distracted by God's ordering Saul to commit genocide against the Amalekites.

Maybe I should have used Genesis 22 instead.