Fabulous Flowers

Firstly- if any of you has a good picture of a Gerbera daisy, preferably a white or yellow one, I really need one and would love to have that shot!

Although I have no professional photography experience, here are a few photos of some flowers that I have taken in the past couple years. :) These are the kinds of photos I will eventually use for portraits...

A rose from one of the beautiful bouquets Jacob gave me before we got married.

Beautiful flowers from Napa Valley, CA.

A daisy. Simple and gorgeous. I had the best lighting for this shot!

Orchids from my mother-in-love's kitchen.

Carnations also from mother-in-love's kitchen.

Isn't God amazing? He makes such beautiful works of art and our imitations of them cannot even compare! Even photos don't capture the true beauty. I LOVE flowers and cannot wait to do some more portraits!

Looking forward to seeing some of your photos! Please email them to bellabeloved.music@gmail.com or post them on your blogs and let me know about them. Thanks, everyone!

Inspiration...

Hi everyone! I am looking for some inspiration as far as what I should draw next...

I know many of you are talented photographers so if any of you have photos you have taken that you think would make pretty paintings or drawings (and if you wouldn't mind me playing with them!), just send them to me and I will see if I can make them into a fun project! :) I love working on new projects and I love seeing how God has blessed others with such amazing talents!

Beautiful grace for the day:

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ... I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:35, 38-39)

Happy sunshine, everyone!

Gifts...

These are two portraits that I did as gifts. This beautiful family is my brother, Evan, his wife, Jenny, and their adorable Charlie who just turned one today!

The other portrait was a gift for my old boss who has a "Civil War" theme in his office.

Grace continued...

Here are some flowers I also did. Some were just for fun :)

More Grace...

This portrait is not an Audrey portrait but was submitted to a local competition. In this project, we had to do a "fauve" self-portrait in acrylic paint. At the competition, it won the honor of hanging in my congresswoman's office for one year. What a wonderful surprise!

This one is a "Breakfast at Tiffany's" shot that I was instructed to do on black paper with white charcoal...yikes!

Audrey had gorgeous eyes and they were always photographed so beautifully. The perfect inspiration...

Graced for His Glory

Although I do not have my website up and running yet, I have begun the launch of my art business! Until I have a site, here are some of my pieces. :) I am proud of what I am able to do, not because I am talented, but because I am graced and gifted by God to do all He asks of me.

These five pictures are a series I did on 12"x 12" scrapbook paper as part of my Studio Art Portfolio. I chose Audrey Hepburn as my concentration but when I was told that I could not do portraits of her because her photos are all copyrighted, my teacher told me to do portraits of myself LIKE Audrey. Quite a challenge... The rest will be in my next posts. Enjoy!

The gray on some of these is due to the exposure on my camera and the way the flash washed out the shot (sorry about that!). Guess I should get some better pictures!

Perfect Love

You've all heard the phrase, "There is nothing to fear but fear itself." In a complicated kind of way- this makes sense. Yet, if there is really nothing to fear but fear itself, we fear fearing and are thus still fearful. If you cast out fear altogether, you can finally come to be completely fearless. And how can this be done? By finding perfect love.

"There is NO fear in love. But PERFECT LOVE drives out fear." - 1 John 4:18, NIV

What is perfect love? No, WHO is it... God. He is our perfect love. With Him there is no reason to fear. "If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31). He has destined us to be victorious in His name and with the power of what? His perfect love. So don't walk around saying, "I'm just so afraid that this will happen." "I'm just so afraid that this person will hurt me." "I'm just so afraid that I'll accidentally do or say this." You are speaking fear into your life! Instead, look at the root of what you're saying BEFORE you say it: "I'm just so afraid." By looking past the root of our statements, we look to the root of our fear - as if those fears were good reasons for being fearful! As scary as those monsters in your life might be- they do not give you an excuse to cast faith aside for the sake of fear.

Remember: What you fear can never justify fear itself. God is not waiting for you to express your fears. He already knows them all. He's waiting for you to express your faith so that He can make fear flee.