JFlah's Blunders

Sketch/Calligraphy - This is only part of the great verse - Needs some work [that "u" and "n" look too much alike for my taste and that weird ligature between then "R" and "g" doesn't work well] and better ink job, but I like the flow and arrangement so may eventually create a vector of this. Sow for yourselves righteousness;      reap steadfast love;      break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord ,      that he may come and rain righteousness upon you. Hosea 10:12 [ESV]

John 3:16 sketch John 3:16   -  digitized sketches in Illustrator then did a mockup in Photoshop Do you dream and remember it? I've always had an over-active dream life... nightmare life, more like, and I often remember what I dream. At least I remember enough snippets of dreams to put them together - probably because I don't have kids or family that forces me to pop out of the bed like a daisy and go to running... [I have too much quiet time... is that even a thing?] Sometimes these dreams become the genesis of a short story, but other times I know they are helping me work out the scary stuff that's happening in my life. Why am I talking about dreaming? It's because I had a weird one that woke me at 4am this morning. A dream that woke me because I died in it - little unusual for me. There's usually danger in my dreams, but I don't usually die in them. Well, thankfully it was an accidental death vs any other sort of terror - the car I was riding ...

This is a fact that has really helped me put things into perspective. Life stinks sometimes, but as the cliche goes, God's bigger than my problems. Not only that, but He isn't vulnerable like me, doesn't have any of my propensities for failure, He's perfect and He loves me... Such a great God!

This is how I've been feeling - trying to be the best at everything but only having brains enough for one - LOL - yeah, I'm a nut.

Did this design for some cut vinyl that will go into our new Ministry Center. Will be black vinyl on a yellowish tan wall. Will take a photo once it's up. Design went through three sketched versions before I landed on something that started to look right to me. All told, the design took more than 20 hours (including the 4 hour sketching time) and I enjoyed each second. Am so glad that I've got Adobe Illustrator to help me digitize the sketch into a vector format - that would've been a bear to do if I'd have had to do all of those points and curves by hand. As it was, I traced the cleaned up sketch scan in illustrator and then got rid of zillions of extra anchor points as I refined it. First version of the trace had girly ribbons with outlines that would've been really difficult to lay in cut vinyl but, the thickened lines aren't too terrible - we'll see how the printer does with it and how much of a monster it is to install.

This is a calligraphy design I drew for a shirt for our women's ministry trip to the Beth Moore Living Proof Live conference in Mobile this August. They chose a bright turquoise shirt with hot pink ink - am looking forward to wearing one of them, especially since the shirts are super soft (District Made brand style DM108). I highly recommend that shirt type - though the number of available colors is tiny.

Alistair Begg of Truth for Life has a sermon series that inspired this one. I highly recommend listening to those - many of his messages have meat in them you may not always get enough of on Sundays. Another plus is that all of his sermon audio files are free for download.

"Murder sin in its infancy" is a phrase I have oft repeated to myself as a reminder of how quickly thoughts can grow to become actions. If I am merciless with the cute little baby thoughts - thoughts that seem innocent and sweet by killing them in the cradle, then there is no opportunity for that sin to grow into full fledged adult sins with drivers licenses and such that wreak havock within my relationship with Christ. Christ has liberated me from the tyranny of sin by paying the ultimate price - he purchased me and my life and my rights to be the driver of my own life. How can I "add my spittle to those who spat upon the cross" by consciously allowing sin to gain any foot hold in my life? Wish it was always easy to recognize and fight that fight. I cannot do it on my own - it is only through His power that I even recognize anything as sin. He is the one who keeps me on the narrow path and I praise Him for it. [Verse: Colossians 3:5 - and here's an i...