creative types unite!

We're hosting two college students this summer in our home, both of whom will be interning at Fortress Youth Development Center - an inner city ministry that our family is dedicated to working with. One of the guys arrived tonight, just after I'd changed into my grubbies and started painting the sky on Aidan's sunset mural.

Darren showed him around the house and then brought him out to the backyard. "Stace, this is Landon," he said. "He's an artist."

I looked at Landon and said, "Seriously? What kind of art do you do?"

"Paint, mostly," he replied.

I stood up, handed him my paintbrush and said, "Here. YOU do this. I have no idea what I'm doing!" And guess what? He did!

I'm no painter. I mean, I can COLOR. As long as I have an outline, I can fill it in with color. I can't draw out of my head, though. I have to copy something I'm looking at. Last weekend, Aidan and I found a picture book that we both liked. The idea for what I painted that day came from that book:


Tonight, as I tried to paint sky with shades of yellow and blue and tinges of sunset, I was failing miserably. I needed outlines, but the sunset sky has none. But Landon the Intern/Artist took my sky and added a fiery setting sun, then added a purple and green and ochre landscape just like the picture showed.



Aidan, overseeing the whole thing, and said over and over, "Wow. Man. That looks GREAT!" Little art critic.

Tonight while we all stood around in the kitchen making up silly songs and laughing, Landon proclaimed that he thinks he couldn't have been placed with a better family. He's already having fun.

It's gonna be a great summer!