Day 6 - Community and PAINT!

After yesterdays events in Boston, I woke up so thankful that I would be spending the day finishing a community project I had been working on since December. I absolutely LOVE being part of a community! I have my church community (where I spent the day today), my artist community, I am blessed to have two groups of friends who my husband and I "Do Life With", then of course there's my family!...and then there's always the neighborhood community! Life is just plain better doing it with people you love and care about!

I've always loved being a part of a community, but I hadn't really started thinking about community until I joined this new church. ( http://www.southpointeri.com ) 

What excited me about this church was their strong desire to build community and love on everyone! Fit me like a glove! 

SO.... naturally I started a community project with the two pastors encouraging me all the way. 

( I love you Jordan and Tanner!)

The idea was to build a huge tree that would be our "Family" tree. I started off by purchasing 3 hollow doors from Home Depot... Did you know how AWESOME these doors are to paint on?! AND they are only $24! ( http://www.homedepot.com/p/t/202036234?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&keyword=hollow+door&storeId=10051&superSkuId=202766787&N=5yc1v&R=202036234#.UW3S17_ZYqc ) 

I gessoed each door. Then everyone got in on the fun of painting the trees! 

Next step was to make the leaves for the trees. I gessoed brown grocery bags, painted them, and cut out about 300 leaves! By the way, my favorite brand of Gesso for preparing surfaces is Utretch. 

( http://www.utrechtart.com/Utrecht-Artists-Acrylic-Gesso--White--Medium-Bodied-MP9000-i1004379.utrecht ) My favorite brand of Gesso for using as white paint is Holbein's smooth white. 

( http://www.dickblick.com/products/holbein-acryla-white-gesso/ )

Everyone in the church was given a leaf to write on, then they were applied to the trees with gel medium. Today my BFFL came along and helped me with the finishing touches! We did a little square dancing in between getting yelled at by our neighbors for playing our music too loud and going out for lunch with everyone! 

Here's the finished painting!

The last part of the day was really fun too! I got to splatter paint all over my friend JD! I guess I just like painting everything... Even if it moves! LOL!