Watercolor on mat board, 5″ x 7″
This blog has been going for three and a half years now, and I really appreciate the encouragement that I’ve received even though the rate of posting has been so slow at times.
Paul in the Bible uses athletic training to make a comparison to the importance of discipline in the goal of receiving an eternal reward in heaven, not excusing himself from this, saying “But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.” (1 Corinthians 9:27) Sometimes I’ve tried giving advice to other artists on the importance of practicing and trying in art despite worries of how it’ll look, but I know I haven’t been as disciplined as that myself. This isn’t good. There’s too much paint still in tubes, ink still in bottles, and graphite still trapped inside wood instead of on paper or canvas where they all belong.
I’ve finally changed the blog title from the generic one I’ve used all along to something more appropriate for what I want to do. Also I’ve been trying out options with the blog theme to make things look a little better. Does the background photo make the text hard to read?
Too Much White Paper 
I can read the title just find with the backgroundphoto. Like the change – seems clean and straight:)
Good 🙂
Thank you- this was our lesson in church today. I just found your blog by chance when I google about paint brands as I was fixing to place an order and they were out of a certain color in Winsor Newton @Jerry’s Art. Thank you for the reminder and your work is beautiful!
Thanks 🙂
It’s definitely an important lesson. Just believing the lesson and actually living it aren’t the same thing, as I well know. We can trust that, even though we are weak, because God Himself wants us to have discipline, especially in spiritual matters, He will strengthen us to attain to this if we are willing to both believe and make what effort we can to reach it. Not relying on our own strength, but on the strength He supplies.
Love the watercolour image; it is hard to paint sunsets and sunrises without making them look a bit ‘twee’ – you have certainly avoided that!
I have to be honest since you asked, I do find the background image is a distraction from the text and posted image, even more so when you are looking at it on a mobile phone!
I tried editing the photo and it was better, but now I’m trying a plain grey. What I’d really like is a dark background, but then the text usually needs to be white and after reading a few paragraphs of white text on a dark background my eyes hurt. It wouldn’t be a problem if I didn’t type so much, but by far my most viewed posts are reviews and comparisons where I wrote a lot. I’ve tried reading them with a dark background before and when I look away there’s an after image of the text in my eyeballs. Maybe this grey doesn’t have as sharp of a contrast with the white text and is easier on the eyes? 🙂
I am looking at it on my mobile and you have a white background now which does make it much easier to read, and it looks good and is ‘clean’ looking and puts your content at the forefront. I agree with you about dark background and white text – it is hard on the eyes! I think a grey background could work too, as long as there is a good contrast between it and the black text. All you can do is keep playing till it works for you. I’m going through the same process with my blog too :-9
That’s strange, it’s definitely a grey background with white text right now. When I’m customizing I clicked the option to view it as it would look on a mobile device and it’s the same. I’ll try various combinations later though. 🙂