November. This is the month that most people like the least. It is often the gloomiest and saddest month of the year. While October often still shines golden in the sun with its colorful foliage, November definitely heralds the cold season. It gets colder and colder, the days get darker and darker. It is also often damp and foggy. The trees lose the last of their leaves. There are no more insects buzzing across the meadows. The last migratory birds also set off on their long journey to the warm south. People are no longer drawn outside and have to eke out their existence in their apartments and houses. The world becomes quiet.
While for most people it is a bleak time of year, there are others who can take a lot of positives from this time of year. I am one of these people. November is not a bleak month for me. Quite the opposite. I am fascinated by the fog and I love this mystical atmosphere. Nothing beats a walk through a cemetery or a forest in this weather.
Besides, I'm not mad that you can't go out so much anymore, because then I don't have to have a guilty conscience if I just want to stay at home to paint. For me, there is no better time of year to paint than winter. It can be stormy, snowing or pouring with rain outside, but I sit comfortably with my painting project and enjoy the woolly warmth at home. Next to my color palette is a cup of steaming punch, which gives off a Christmassy scent in the room. Small lights create a cozy atmosphere. Then immersing myself in a painting project with beautiful music, a good sermon or an exciting audio book is pure relaxation.
The creation of the picture
It was much the same in November 2021, only this November was different from others. As the year reveals, we were in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. In addition to a dreary month, there were the mental challenges of the corona measures. Many struggled during this time. For me, painting was a good way to switch off and focus my thoughts on something beautiful during this time.
During this time, I became interested in drops. I find water droplets very fascinating. So I watched some YouTube tutorials on how to paint water droplets and tried it out. I found a video on YouTube with a picture of water droplets being painted on a window pane. I tried to recreate that. First I painted a version on acrylic paper. Somehow I liked the motif and so I decided to paint the whole thing more beautifully on a small canvas. The day was a typical November day. It was raining and storming outside. But I was perfectly happy to paint this little picture in my apartment. Painting takes you away from all your problems and stress into another world. The lockdown, the sad weather and all your personal worries fade into the background and your soul can breathe a sigh of relief.
This is expressed in the small picture. Everything in the background is gray and blurred. You can make out something of the view from the window, but you can't see clearly. But there is a glimmer of hope. A small candle in the window illuminates the darkness. Its lively flickering light brings some warmth and hope into the cold of winter.
I didn't just paint this motif to practise dripping. During this time, I already had crazy ideas buzzing around in my head, like printing postcards and the like. So I thought that this motif would be a good place to start. I digitized the finished image and added a Bible text on the computer. I was looking for a text that would convey hope. In the end, the text I chose was the famous Psalm 23 and there the 4th verse:
„Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.“
This Bible text has already given comfort to many people in a wide variety of emergencies. For me, the years 2020 to early 2022 were such a dark valley. Not just because of the coronavirus pandemic, but also because of my health. My whole world collapsed for me at the end of 2021 (if you want to read more about this, you can find the here do). But I didn't know any of this when I painted this picture in November and had it printed as a postcard.
Would anyone like my postcard?
I actually only wanted to have 50 postcards made as a test print, but for some reason I received a lot more. The print shop probably added one too many zeros. At the time, I didn't have much experience with digital processing. That's why the format didn't fit and the postcard was delivered with a white border. I painstakingly cut this off every single postcard.
I wasn't sure how it would go down with people or whether anyone would be interested in it at all.
When I had my first stand at the ASi conference last year, I was amazed at how eagerly people reached for this postcard. There are now only a few of the first print left.
Last year, my older brother asked me if we could also translate the postcard into Czech and Sorbian. That was no problem. By now I had a lot more experience in digitally reworking my pictures. So I changed the format and enlarged the frame of my original picture so that there would no longer be a white border on the postcard.
So far, we have had 500 postcards printed for both the Sorbs and the Czechs. The postcards in Sorbian are now in their third edition. When I painted this motif on a dreary November evening in 2021, I would never have dared to dream that it would be so well received. It was actually just a practice picture to learn how to paint raindrops.
Looking back, I am amazed. Sometimes we want to do great things for God and change the world. But often it's the small, inconspicuous things that God wants to use to shine a small light into the dark night of the world. When I started this website and blog in 2020, I dedicated it to God. Everything here is to glorify His wonderful name. In the beginning, I didn't know if anyone would be interested in what I write here and what I paint.
But I now have an average of 500 visitors a day to my website. I don't know who these precious people are who are reading this. But occasionally I get positive feedback that my posts have been a blessing. That encourages me to keep going.
A small light can illuminate a room
What I have learned from this is that we sometimes have to go through a dark valley. God does not protect us from everything negative. He knows that if we trust in His care, our experience will strengthen us and be a blessing to many others. This website was created because I wanted to do something meaningful for God during the lockdown. Although I wasn't doing so well during those years and I didn't know what the future would bring, I held on to my God with trust and dedicated everything I had to Him. Writing down my own story and the story of my paintings was therapy for myself. But God took the small and insignificant things I offered him and turned them into something bigger and more beautiful. From this one small candle that I painted in November 2021, 1200 new candles have been created so far by printing this motif, with another 500 being added these days. One candle can dimly illuminate a small room in absolute darkness. But how much light do 1700 candles provide? They can light up an entire room and make it sparkle!
It all started with a small candle in the window. This has grown into 1700 candles in three different languages. May the light of these candles never go out and light many more candles!
What is your little light that you could let shine? Perhaps you tell yourself that your gift is too small, too insignificant, too bad to make a difference and change things. But if you bring this small gift to God, consecrate it to him and make yourself completely available to him, then he will make something big out of it! Sometimes we don't see the effects (immediately). But in eternity we will see how precious a friendly smile, a warm handshake and an encouraging word was. Only in eternity will we see how the smallest gift, which we have dedicated to God from the bottom of our hearts and used for His glory, has produced great fruit.
So I hope that this simple motif, together with the Bible text from Psalm 23, can continue to shine its little light and bring peace and comfort to many sad hearts.
If you would like to carry this light further, then visit my Online store! There you can buy the postcard in all three languages!
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