THE MASTER'S TOUCH


                                         
                                                                                                                                                                               
                                                                                                   

                   THE MASTER’S TOUCH     Copyright  Frances K. Van Mil  

There I was, working on my third painting in the art classes I was taking.  I had found a photo I liked of light grasses, dark brown water and rocks, with a backdrop of trees.  In my senior years, never having developed my artistic bent, I was experimenting:  can I paint rocks?  Can I paint trees?  Can I do reflections?  I was intrigued by what looked like a phantom bird in bright blue, just above the three rocks at the bottom right.  On the left, in the brown water, were long, blue streaks resembling bullrushes, in the same bright blue. A trick of the camera, I thought, but I liked them: the colours were rich, and they added a bit of fantasy, even mystery to the painting.  I was working on the sky behind the trees, and the dark blue shadows between the trees, before doing the routine, almost boring trees at the back.  I took the same shade of blue as the bird, lightened it to three pastel shades and began the mottled sky, then worked in the shadow shapes.
          At that moment, Barb, our teacher came by to check on my progress.  Barb is an expert.  Accomplished as both a portraiture artist and a teacher, she always knows exactly how to fix our mistakes.  When I had despaired, in my first painting of fruit in a bowl, about a huge, dark shadow and dark background lines I wished I had omitted, she assured me that every painting needs some dark, some light, some bright and some dull elements in it.  Calmly, she had led me to just the right red colour to finish the background.  She encouraged me that the movement in my painting was “painterly”: high praise from a teacher who is always honest and even blunt in her charming way. On my second painting, a simple garden shed with snow, shadows and trees, I had been unable even to draw the shed correctly.  With her usual calm expertise, Barb had found exactly the right angle for the artistic perspective lines of the side of the shed which receded into the bush.
          Now, finishing the background for my painting with the blue bird, I expected only a simple word or two before Barb moved on.
          “Stop!”, she said, imperiously.  “Your painting is finished!”

What?  And then I saw it.  The dancing blue tree shadows and warm pastel sky provided an impressionistic touch to the more realistic scene below, tying in with the bird and rushes.  Somehow, the colours and composition worked.  To know when to stop painting demanded an expert eye.  Barb then analyzed the painting, explaining why it worked, talking of perspective, composition and lightness.  No one was more amazed than I.  I felt released to be the artist I want to be, without taking years to perfect technique first.  When she encouraged me, not everyone, always to block in big shapes first, before going into detail, I knew that she understood me as a unique artist.      
          We have just such an expert in life.  God made us, loves and understands each one of us as a unique person, and has every moment of our lives planned.  He truly knows when to interrupt our ho-hum mindset, and cause us to soar—perhaps sooner than we think!

Prayer: Lord, help us to trust You to make us soar like eagles in every aspect of our lives.  Thank You that nothing that You have planned for us to do or become, no talent placed within us, will lack Your expert touch in Your perfect timing, even if that timing is in our last years.         

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