Colors

My memory of art college was spending every Saturday buying what my son needed for his next week’s projects.
 “More colored pencils?” I asked; “You have at least a hundred by now.”
 “But I don’t have these,” he replied.
“Haven’t you learned to blend colors yet?” I asked… as I paid.

 Months later while we were traveling to Grand Rapids to spend a relaxing weekend, my son asked me to count the number of greens I saw. It was lovely spring day, my favorite season; and I wasn’t on-call for two whole days. So I smiled and began counting, but within a few minutes I lost track of whether that was a new green or not. The Creator of the Universe had painted the waking of nature with myriads of greens in all its shades, tints, and hues.

“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts;” wrote Marcus Aurelius.

And this mother told her son, “You can have as many colored pencils as you’d like.”

Today, my son is a successful graphic designer and I am a colorist a.k.a., a color-er. I started with a set of colored pencils and an adult coloring book to pass the time and to keep from being bored.

 Soon I added gel pens…








                                                     then a cart to hold all of them.

 I never seem to have just the right shade. Sound familiar?

I love the flow of ink on the paper and seeing the combination of multiple shades of a color group form a flower. I’ve graduated from a 12 per box to 120 and still want more choices.

 The transition from threads and yarns to ink actually came first. The colors I use for my needlework add dimension and texture. My grandson called it threading (drawing with thread) when he was a toddler. 

Coloring does pass the time for this homebound woman. As a bonus, I have discovered bright colors becoming bridges to happy memories and problem-solving becomes easier while coloring. Best of all, coloring connects me to the author of all colors.

 I am thankful we earthlings were given eyes with “some of the most complex structures in all of nature. The human eye can take in a million simultaneous impressions and can tell the difference between eight million different colours.” (@http://www.eyesite.co.uk/news/humans-vs-animals-who-has-better-vision/)

 Jürgen Moltmann wrote, “Our disappointments, our loneliness and our defeats do not separate us from him (God); they draw us more deeply into communion with him.”It is when I’m coloring that I understand that the best.

 And it is through the eyes of others I see what my walls hide from me: [As I run each day] “ I learn to notice perfect strangers who go out of their way to share a smile; I pay attention to dogs grinning as they walk their owners; and my eyes are drawn, again and again, to nature waking up.” ~ Ryan J. Pemberton