Wanna Paint With Me?

Here's a creative idea for your Lent

A couple of Februarys ago, in the midst of the worst of the winter doldrums, my family and I decided to try something different. After dinner one snowy evening, we gathered together in the dining room where we set up canvases, brushes, palettes, and acrylic paints. Then, using a tutorial we found on YouTube, we painted!

Some of us enjoy artistic endeavours more than others, but none of us would have called ourselves an artist, but man, we had fun! And I was so thrilled to see how our results were unique expressions of each of our personalities:

Here’s the tutorial we used that night, in case you’re interested

We had so much fun that we have since hosted several painting sessions here. Some of us still use tutorials, but others of us have graduated to painting our own subjects. It always makes for a lot of creative fun together!

Then, last March, when I was recovering from knee surgery and got really tired of television, I decided to try painting an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I found that painting a religious image was a beautiful way to relax, pray, and create something all at once. And then that gave me another idea!

I reached out to my friend Christine Dion, who is an actual bona fide artist who shares her beautiful work online, and asked if she might help create something I noticed there was not too much of in those YouTube tutorials: Catholic content!

Christine agreed to create a tutorial for a Lenten image — just for us right here in my Substack. Look at what she is going to help us to paint:

I’ll be sharing the tutorial with you next week, but in the meantime, are you ready to try this with me? I don’t want to hear anything like “I’m not an artist …”
You are made in the image and likeness of God, and he is our Creator. Create something! Try something new! Enjoy the process! Here’s what Christine suggests you have ready:

You may even have some acrylic paints already. We bought ours at Michaels along with some basic brushes.

Are you ready? Here we go! Let me know if you are planning to join us. I can’t wait to try this with you!