Happy Memorial Day!

Yesterday was the first truly "hot" day in Cleveland. 
We went from winter ...
    ... to Monsoon ..
        ... to Summer
(as a co-worker put it - Spring was rained out this year!)

My daughters and I attended the University Heights Memorial Day Parade.
Soldiers, bagpipes, drill teams, politicians and classic cars! 

Fun fun.!

Next, headed home for some BAR B Que!!!

Yea!!!

Hope your Memorial Day was memorable!

Many thanks for those who have given their lives in service to our nation.





My Easter Artpiece

Last month I was busy working on an art piece for my church's Good Friday program.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was one of several artists asked to create my own interpretation of a particular part of the Easter story.  I was working on "Jesus was nailed to the cross."



My painting of Jesus Nailed to the Cross



I began by decoupaging strips of telephone book papers to the canvas with matte medium,
until I had covered the entire canvas.
The telephone pages represent that Jesus died for everyone,



Happily creating!!



 




Once I had covered the canvas with telephone book pages, I gessoed (an acrylic paint primer) over all of it, wiping off some of the gesso so the words could show through.  I also added and gessoed some of the "ugly" words in black on the bottom of the canvas, that describe man's sinful nature.
There is a great abyss that separates man from God.

I added (and gessoed) words describing the attributes of Jesus, in red, to the top of the canvas

next, using acrylic paint, I rough-painted the form of Jesus.

Christ is the mediator between God and man.  Only He can stand in the gap.
He took upon Himself ALL of the sins which man had committed in the past...
...were committing as He hung on the cross...
and ALL of the sins we would commit in the future,
All the sins of all the Adams, the Jezibels, the Gingus Khans, the Hitlers, the nice old ladies across the street,
all the murders, stealing, lying, disrespecting, prideful lusting, the forsaking and denial of God...
Every transgression of every human being past present future,
Only Christ is the spotless, perfect sacrafice.
Our sins are covered by the blood of His sacrafice.
Amen

I added more detail

I finished off the highlighting, shadows and bordered the painting with distress ink.



The finished piece at church.



The RANDOM Adventures of the Gabriel Gals.

My daughters and I enjoy Randomness.  We find humor in the most absurd of situations and we are very impulsive in the things we like to do. 

Saturday (which turned out to be a gorgeous day!) we decided to go to the 2nd Annual Cleveland Asian Festival downtown.  We were immediately greeted by the aroma of ethnic foods being cooked over at the food venue. We made our way over to one of the performance-stage tents to see what type of dance was being performed.  We were ecstatic to hear a song from one of our favorite Indian movies "Lagaan", so there we stood at the edge of the venue singing - fairly poorly - the song "Radha Kaise Na Jale".

Comically RANDOM!!

We watched performances from India, Thailand, China, and Japan. We ate Korean, Phillipian, and other Asian cuisine - Yum! I purchased some exquisite jewelery from Cambodia and a beautiful fringed Japanese shawl.

Beautiful Japanese traditional dancers.

The city of Cleveland has decorated sculptures located throughout the city, commemorating the

Year of the Rabbit.

This Rabbit is a punk rocker, located in the Asian Plaza.

As we left the festival and were walking back to our car, we had to cross a bridge over a freeway overpass.  We paused to watch the cars and trucks racing below.

Then we each began to wave at the drivers.

Nearly all of the drivers waved back at us! 

It was fabulously RANDOM!!

We decided to continue our Asian Adventure by picking up some Take Out from Tree Country Bistro

 on Coventry.  It serves Japanese, Thai and Korean food.  It was de-lish-shosh!! (although a bit pricey)

We ended up parking on the roof of the parking garage and decided to amuse ourselves by watching the crowds below, undetected.  We had a blast being RANDOM!

!!!!!

Of Rain and Rainbows

" I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds,  I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind."
                                                                      Genesis 9:13-15


I love Cleveland. 

But sometimes I can get downright fed up with the long periods of foul weather.
It has been raining, about to rain or just finished raining for the better part of 2 weeks now.  My sinuses, my aching arthritic joints and by overall attitude has suffered as a result.

Gloomy, gloomy.
Sixteen shades of gray day in and day out.

Some years we skip spring altogether and go from 50's and cold drizzle right into 90's and humidity.

Well, this morning as I got my aching bones up and ready for the busy day ahead, the weatherman warned of heavy fog and periods of rain and thunderstorms - (again!!) throughout the day.  I emerged from my apartment expecting to see the gray pallette again, and was pleasantly surprised to see - ah - sunshine! 

As I rode the bus downtown, I realized the sun was shining - yet people had their umbrellas up and vehicles on the road had their windshield wipers going.  It was sunny, yet the rain was downpouring!

Well, that could only mean one thing.  There's got to be a RAINBOW somewhere!!!

I strained to see the sky over the top of the buildings in search for my rainbow.  Finally, as I disembarked from the bus and turned the corner through one of the quads on Public Square, I saw it...

A beautiful big rainbow, stretching over the square and out towards the lake!!!

"Thank you Jesus!!!" I said out loud (yes, I don't care who hears me AND I've been known to stop perfect strangers on the street to have them look at some of God's masterpieces... rainbows, full moons, and all!)

I knew I had to get a picture, but all I had was my cell phone. I'm not very techno savvy, but hey, go for it, I thought to myself.  Unfortunately my bus was just pulling up.  I struck up a conversation with the bus driver about the rainbow, on my short ride to my office - all the while trying to strain to see if I could see any remnant of it.  As I got off the bus, I saw the rainbow behind City Hall, only this time it was beginning to diminish into the lake.  I snapped this photo of it:

I was so thrilled to get a picture with my cell phone.  I crossed the street and 30 seconds later as I turned to look at the rainbow again, it had disappeared!!

I truly felt the Lord had allowed me to see this rainbow as a way to encourage me during such a dark, gloomly period and just to say "hi!" and let me know He was thinking of me!!

It made me smile all day just to think of it!

Meanwhile, it rained.  And thunderstormed. and rained some more.

Forecast for tomorrow;   showers and scattered Thunderstorms...

But, at least I know the Lord of the Universe is thinking about me!