Treasure in Earthen Vessels

     I worked really hard on this painting for my first competition at the L2L Convention last year.  

 At first, I was terrible at painting. 

 I liked to sketch, and do that a lot, but not paint. 

One of my first sketches
practicing perspective

    So I took lessons from an Artist friend, and watched many Youtube videos on Watercoloring before I even tried to paint my picture.  

Another practice sketch

We were reading Revelation when I got to the day when I was ready to start my watercolor project, so I decided to paint the Lord of all lords coming back for His people.  

The horse was the hardest part

I finally got the horse right,
then it was time to
start painting

I did the sky first, but I had to do many practice
paintings before I was ready for the final one
Watercolor is hard, because there are many layers.

I was really surprised
when they said I won
First Place!

During this time when I was painting, one of my Memory verses was this one: 


"But we have this treasure 
in earthen vessels,
that the excellence 
of the power may be 
of God 
and 
not of us."

2 Corinthians 4:7


I know God helped me with this project.  It was really a tough one. 
 Sometimes I wanted to give up.  My Dad said that it was like the earthen vessels.  They crack and are sometimes broken or decayed or rotten, with holes all in them.

But if we hold on tight to God, He will fill them 
with His Light and 
that Light will shine out through the cracks.
That is what happened with my Watercolor Project. 

There were LOTS of cracks, like the 
sketches you can see in these pictures.  

But each time, the cracks got better, 
and in the end, the Light of 
Jesus was able to Shine out of the holes.

The shiny-est time was when they 
called me up to the stage at the Convention. 
That was Great! 

It was a LOT of HARD work, but it was worth it in the end

Sketching a
Self Portrait in my Art Class