Welcome to .::You Bird::. - Gwen's attempt to share her thoughts and art with the "world"
I recently discovered a couple of great tutorial sites, PSDFan and PSDTuts. With some of my spare time, I decided to follow the “Digitally Paint a Fantasy Tree Scene” tutorial by Maciej Kwas.
At first I was a little overwhelmed by looking at all the steps and detailed instructions, but I decided just to take it one step at a time. I’m really happy with the results, and this has given me more confidence in my Photoshop skills. I also must say that using my awesome tablet may have been key. I will mention though, that it took me forever to find the grass brush at first. I must have loaded new brush sets, rather than appending them, and missed the default set. Now I know!
I’d love to hear thoughts/feedback/comments. Or just say “hello”!
Man… I haven’t kept up with this blog very well. I started strong, but then time just slipped by! I hope to have an update this week. <3 Gwennie
Church was pretty awesome on Sunday. I lead worship in place of Chris, and just had a marvelous time in the presence of the Lord. I love when I get so caught up in worshiping that I kind of forget about the “leading” part. I just wanted to jump off the stage, it was just so good, and Holy Spirit was there and I could tell by watching the congregation that we were united in our worship of the Father. It was very sweet :_)
I’ve been thinking lately about how I’m a “worship leader” now. Dwight actually brought this to my attention recently. He asked me how it felt to be a worship leader, and honestly, my first reaction was that I didn’t want to be called that :_) I’m just unsure of the title I guess, and ultimately, I just want to be a worship leader. I feel like I have the skills to be a worship leader, I can sing, and play guitar ok :_) But I’ve never pursued worship leading as my “calling”. I love to worship, but I have never really seen myself leading worship full time for a church, or in front of huge crowds at conferences, or teaching seminars on worship, or writing a book about it… No, I really just want to be a worshiper :_)
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This past weekend was full of some huge news, which wasn’t incredibly exciting actually. Our beloved friend Chris has been fighting cancer since August, and after having a unexpected seizure last week, he and Martha found out that the cancer has moved to his brain. What a shock to all of us who have been praying and hoping that he would be healed!
Things were starting to look up again too. Chris had just released the new worship schedule, and he was planning to lead twice this month, now that his voice has returned. So, in the midst of this crisis I am faced with leading worship more (which I actually love :_), although it can turn into that “one more thing on my plate” deal) and also plowing through our work deadline, which I was hoping to have some of Chris’ help with.
So what do I do!? Where do I begin? There are so many thoughts that could overwhelm me right now.
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Before I explain, let me just say, 2 posts in 2 days! Oh my goodness! What is with this! :_) (I’m surprising myself!)
I’m a fairly active dreamer. It is rare that I go a few nights without having at least one dream during the night. Often times they run together or disappear from my mind before I can write them down, but sometimes they stick with me.
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I listened to a couple podcasts tonight about “The Fasted Lifestyle”. A lifestyle of prayer and reading the bible and fasting regularly. It’s incredibly biblical, and it’s something that I feel myself being drawn to more and more. Tonight as I listened I was sketching and the speaker said something along the lines of “God is saying ‘I want your heart’.” And when you live “the fasted lifestyle” you’re giving up those things that take up room in your heart, leaving less space for God.
I’m just so gripped by the fact that God wants ME. He doesn’t want my ministry, or what I can create for him or do for him. He just wants me. He wants time with me. He wants my heart. And so this picture is what it looks like to me. What Gods desire for me looks like.
This blog is about a new season in my life. Lately I’ve been feeling like something is missing from my relationship with God. A couple months ago I remember thinking to myself, “what do they have that I don’t have?”, they being other people in my life that are thriving and excited about God and what he’s doing in their lives.
I was definitely not at that place.
In fact, I was bored. Read more »
So, I’ve decided to take a new direction with this blog (although any direction would be something new!). With Dwight’s encouragement, I’m going to try and chronicle some new things that are happening in my life, spiritually, emotionally, creatively. All that jazz :_)
Since I’m at work at the moment, I’ll be adding more later tonight (for real!)