A little Chickadee

8x10" ©2013

This piece has been a new challenge for me. I have been starting to feel a little bogged down with my common settings of bird in flight or resting on a bare branch, and I have felt like I needed something new to keep me moving forward to grow and trust God to lead the way. I fell in love with this little photo on Pinterest of a chickadee clinging upside down to these flowers and thought it might just be the new model God has intended to teach me through.

I often feel as though each bird I paint and each painting have something new to teach me, and so far this last month as I have been working on these intricate flower pedals, the learning curve has been up!  It has taken longer as perfectionist tendencies are up trying to make each detail exact, and needing time to tell myself to breath it will get there, you haven't done this before, it is okay! 

I also liked the idea of the bird hanging upside down as it relates to the upside-down world we live in. As I have shown this work to others and found that they feel uncomfortable with the positioning of the bird and are often tempted to turn it. Making another great connection of how uncomfortable growth can be to us and those around us as it happens. But mostly bringing out the longing our world to be set straight again. 

I am still learning and working...

"And now, just as. You accepted Christ Jesus as Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots go down into him, and let your lives be built on him."

Colossians 2:6-7