J. Althouse Studio of Art

Sometimes people enjoy seeing the process of a painting come together. If you’re one of those people…here is the latest Christmas piece from start to finish 💛

Merry Christmas 🎄

This year’s church Christmas painting was inspired by the phrase in CS Lewis’s “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe” - “It’s always winter, but never Christmas” 💛 Additionally, I almost always have a song in mind that goes along for further inspiration. The song “In Like A Lion” by Relient K has been a favorite of mine for a very long time. It perfectly describes how I feel about life this side of eternity. We are in winter now, but we have hope that someday the King will return and make everything new ❤️

Some of the lyrics are below ⬇️

It's always winter but never Christmas
It seems this curse just can't be lifted
Yet in the midst of all this ice and snow
Our hearts stay warm cause they are filled with hope

And everything it changed overnight
This dying world you brought it back to life
And deep inside I felt things
Shifting everything was melting
Away oh away
And you gave us the most beautiful of days

Cause when it's always winter but never Christmas
Sometimes it feels like you're not with us
But deep inside our hearts we know
That you are here and we will not lose hope

When painting gets serious 🔧 🎨 🤣

I was honored to create another Christmas painting for our church this year. A big thanks to Andrew Althouse for helping to create this piece.

The first picture is the finished piece, but you can scroll through the next few to see some of the steps.

“Wonder”

All alone on a hill, stands a lamb. Somehow this lamb has wandered away from his shepherd’s safety.

Far off in the distance bright lights shown suddenly in the sky — not starlight, but angels, announcing Jesus’ arrival.

Seeing the light, his ears tilt—he’s curious. “What’s that over there?” he wonders. He’s attracted to the beauty of the Wonder that is occurring far away. It’s unlike anything he’s ever seen before. He doesn’t understand why, but he’s drawn to it.

He’s the lost sheep that Jesus came to save.

This lamb represents us—you and me.

Our sin broke our relationship with God and we wandered off. And Jesus came to bring us back, and restore our relationship with Him.

My prayer is that, wherever you are, you’re attracted to the Wonder of Christ’s love and beauty and grace—whether you’re experiencing it for the thousandth time, or the first. I pray that this Christmas season you find your way to Jesus, the Good Shepherd.

Sometimes you’re the hand that creates the painting, sometimes you’re the hand that supports the hand that creates.

Both are necessary.

Doodling just for fun

This isn’t the cleanest drawing I’ve done, but…

This quote left such an impression on me that I couldn’t get out of my head what it would look like visually.

What door have you tried your hardest to pry open?

What are you missing because of it?

Ink drawing from forever ago ... probably around 2003

When the people who graciously paid for your education say they like the previous grape drawing that you gave away ... you create another one ❤️ 🍇

Connie Krier

Just doing some doodling...

Making progress!!

First of several layers ...

Working on the next piece.

Anyone want to take a guess what will be in his hands?

It’s loosely based on a Bible verse.

Ordered new toys.... I mean, materials 😁😁

My paint mixing skills were questioned today....by a certain six year old.

She got a cute “Create and Paint a Tiger” kit for Christmas. A couple days ago she painted it white, today it was time for stripes. The kit didn’t come with brown paint and I said we could easily mix the colors to get brown. She DID NOT BELIEVE ME.

“Are you sure?”
“Do you know how to mix colors?”
“What if we can’t get brown?”

Sheesh, kid, I’m not a Michelangelo but I THINK I can mix paint to get brown 🤦🏼‍♀️

When I see stunning colors like this I’m so grateful that God made the world in color.

There was a Sandi Patti kids cassette tape we had has small kids — yes, I realize just severely dated myself 🤣🤣. I don’t remember any of the songs from it except one line from one song, because even as a kid it impacted me. The lyrics said, “He could have made the world in black and white and we’d have never known. That’s the love of God.”

Can you imagine if everything was only black and white? Everything looked like TVs from the 30’s - the 60’s.

How gracious is He that something that we see every day that we don’t think much about makes a huge difference in how we see the world?

We wouldn’t experience the glorious sunsets.
We wouldn’t appreciate the vibrant green grass in the spring.
We wouldn’t know the stunning aquas of the oceans.
We wouldn’t recognize the rainbow of fish that live in the water.
We wouldn’t see the hidden treasure of the ruby red pomegranate seeds.

How amazing that He chose to gift us with colors.

For those of you who like to see the steps a piece goes through....

I can’t tell you how excited I am to share this piece with you ❤️

Among the craziness that this year has brought, come back to cradle with me for just a little bit.

Personally, when I look at this piece, I relax.
I breathe a little deeper.
I can sense Christ’s peace as I consider all it represents.

When I think of the kings and shepherds visiting Christ as a child I envision them dropping to their knees and removing whatever head covering they had. Dropping whatever was in their hands. They let go. No matter their status they were all the same — brought to humility in reverence once in the presence of Jesus. They knew who Jesus was and that His coming would bring peace between God and mankind. Then one day because of this peace there would be no more pain, no more fear, no more trouble.

So whatever your place is today come lay down your burdens, your job titles, your fears, your treasures. Drop them. Let go. Come into the presence of the caring, loving, and gently leading Shepherd. Come into the presence of the powerful, ruling, yet sacrificial King.

Let His coming bring you the peace you have longed for this year. Not peace with the world, but peace with God. Let his coming bring you hope, for now and the future.

PS - Do you see the hidden image? That was Andrew Althouse’s idea ❤️

Stay tuned friends!!!! TOMORROW afternoon I’ll be posting the Christmas piece I created for my church.

WHBC friends, if you attend church tomorrow morning you’ll get to see it in the building.

I’ve been antsy waiting to share it. It just might be my favorite new piece 🎨 ❤️

Here’s a small section of it ⬇️

The last of my pottery pieces.

Hoping someday I can get back to taking lessons ❤️

Here are the first 3 finished pieces from the freshly glazed pieces I posted a couple weeks ago.

These 3 in particular have a special place in my heart.

See the bottoms of these pieces? They are unfinished and actually really messy looking and I love them. These three I made back on March 11th, 2020. That day I left them on the bats and wrapped them in plastic until I could tend to them again. That was the last time I went to the studio before everything shut down.

I didn’t see them again for another three months.

Because of the length of time unattended, I figured they had dried to the bats. That they wouldn’t be saved.

But you know what?

They made it.

Yeah. Because of the circumstances I didn’t have opportunity to properly finish the bottoms. But it’s ok. I still love them.

I tend to hold my artwork pretty loosely, but when I get attached to a piece it’s not really about the piece itself. It’s what the piece represents to me.

When I see these pieces I see loss ....
and hope.

Loss of life
Loss of time with loved ones
Loss of jobs
Loss of health
Loss of community
Loss of sanity
Loss of human touch
Loss of special moments

The list goes on.

But I also see hope.

Hope that despite all the loss, something beautiful can still come of it. God doesn’t waste anything....even 2020. I know this year has been hard and ugly, but don’t get so caught up in those facts that you miss what God is doing in your life. What God is creating in your life. It just might be something beautiful anyway.

You know what I’m thankful for? Well, a couple things.

1 - The chance to get out by myself this morning and glaze the pieces I made back in March.

2 - The fact that God knows what He’s doing and knows how things will turn out.
I know, probably not what you were expecting-lol! Hear me out.

Glazing pottery is probably the step in all of pottery that I’m the most uncertain about.

a - I’m not that skilled at it.
b - There’s the uncertainty of how the glaze will fire.
c - I don’t know if the colors will come out like I hoped.
d - I hope that the piece won’t stick to the kiln (if you don’t know, sticking to the kiln is bad).

I’m uncertain about a lot of things in the glazing process. And if I’m honest, a lot of life right now is pretty uncertain.

I’m so thankful that God isn’t uncertain.
He is fully skilled.
He knows the fire.
He see the existing colors and the ones that will be.
He knows how we will survive the fire.

And the great part? Not only does He know, He’s with us too, through every part.
Thank goodness ❤️

Back to the time I took art lessons in junior high and learned how to paint with acrylic paints.

Back in January a good friend of ours was planning his wedding and asked me to create a special piece for his bride. One that would hold special meaning for her and would remind her of her favorite Bible verse 46:10 “Be still and know that I am God.”

I had the honor of working on it this year and now that the piece is finally in the hands of my beautiful friend and bride ❤️ I get to share it here with you all.

Lots of you have mentioned you like to see pieces progress from beginning to end, this post contains pictures of it coming to life. I apologize in advance the pictures are not in the same place/lighting...that’s something I’m working on moving forward.

Bonus : Anyone able to catch the hidden message in it?

I’m getting SOOOO excited for this Christmas piece.
And because I have practically zero patience 🤣🤣 here is a sneak peak of what’s coming! It doesn’t look like much....but I’m sure you can figure out what it is 😉

“I built you a cake” - Pedro

I’ve never attempted a baked good before. It’s not my best work, but I had fun experimenting.

I probably shouldn’t commit any crimes like this 🤣

Honestly, they’ve seen far worse though.

An hour or so later...

Pastel still life on textured paper.

If you missed them, be sure to go back to the last couple posts to see the progression.

A little while later ...