Mary's Friday Newsletter 5/23/25

Paintings plans, new artwork processes, and bad marriage advice (a podcast suggestion)

Hello dear ones,

At the beginning of the year, I mapped out when I would create art collections this year and when I wanted to release new artwork for the shop. I plan to paint new hymn prints this Fall and have a show in September to paint for later this summer. For this month, I have a floral collection planned.

I do this because if I don’t plan and space projects out, I can get overwhelmed and depressed and end up doing—nothing.

So to my surprise, I’m following my plan and have started work on a small floral collection on wood boards!

Here’s a video of a painting I worked on this week:

I’m working on establishing a consistent process for these, so I don’t have to reinvent it each time and end up with different results. It’s kind of like a recipe for painting.

My “recipe” for these paintings include the following:

• Layer order: watercolor ground (flat then areas of flower shapes) + watercolor layers (1-2) + creamy pastels + dry pastels + pastel pencil + matte finish sealing spray + acrylic matte varnish

• no lines until the very last step—stick to shapes

• don’t divide the canvas in half—keep it in thirds

• no straight lines across the canvas?

• define shapes with areas of color

• try to let areas of the watercolor show

• use complementary colors layered on top of each other for added “punch” (but don’t overdo it)

• make the background interesting

Speaking of sticking to a plan, I talked about the important step of sketching this week in my watercolor tutorial:

In the tutorial, I walk you through three ways you can sketch with watercolor. I think this is all-important in your art practice! I’m very much a go-with-your-gut kind of person, so it is always a challenge for me to slow down and plan, but again and again, I see its value. You can subscribe for $5/month to get the tutorials!

In other happenings, I listened to this excellent podcast episode on the Bare Marriage Podcast with Sheila Gregoire yesterday, analyzing the marriage book, His Needs, Her Needs (a classic in some Christian communities). Even if you haven’t read the book, you may have encountered many of its ideas. I find it similar to Love and Respect, which Gregoire has also tackled in another episode. As I’ve said before, I have a very contentious relationship with most Christian marriage books!

The two co-hosts of this episode were excellent as well and were new to me. Bethany Jantzi is a psychologist and specializes in situations of coercive and controlling behavior. Ngina Otiende is a marriage coach and author who examines “unhealthy relationship advice and how elevating the marriage institution above individual welfare has harmed us.”

That’s all I’ve got for this Friday. We have a big hunk of pork thawing in the refrigerator that my husband plans to smoke for Memorial Day on Monday. Happy Memorial Day to my American friends, and especially all those who have served our country, along with their families who sacrifice so much as well.

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made;
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
—The Love of God is Greater Far by Frederick Martin Lehman (18680-1953)

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