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Topic: SMEAR (03/10/16)
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TITLE: The Painting | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jeremy Kirby
03/17/16 -
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The artist picks up a bottle of paint and squeezes it out on one side then the other. He then grabs a small trowel and begins spreading it out, up and down, left to right staining the outer perimeter of the canvas.
Young Sam is playing in a living room building a Lego palace and she is almost finished. She is so proud that at that moment nothing else in the world exists. Then, in from around the corner walks her brother. The sibling proceeds with a grimace towards the Legos. He kicks them with all of his might, and sends pieces flying. The child begins to cry while her younger sibling, full of some tortuous malice, laughs and runs away. This is the first glimpse of our stained nature, laden with sin.
A different color he smears across the still white area of the paper. He takes his brush and swishes it diagonally, blots it harshly and stretches the paint thin until it blends in with the original hue. It has an effect but it is still unrecognizable. It is not an attractive color like you would find in a Rocky Mountain sunset or the desert wildflowers blooming in the spring. It is ugly and un-special.
A teenage girl looks longingly in the distance at the man of her dreams. He is a football player, tall and strong with smooth tan skin and black wavy hair. He is in all of her classes and occasionally he helps her finish a project or study for a test. She dreams of being in his arms, of walking down the aisle, awaiting his kiss. A tear drops to her cheek as he holds the arm of another girl and they both disappear into the doorways of the school dance.
A stroke of red he spreads in a straight line with a wide brush across the piece. He brushes it down, a swish of black juts up and blends into the white. The artist works quickly, flailing his arm here and there stretching, adding and creating. The picture is larger, more involved and ever changing but the end is still unseen.
Sam’s father passes, it is a hard time for her family but even harder for her. Most of her life she didn’t have a father. Only until recently, after all the attractions and addictions finally were put away did Sam’s father return. They had a good five years together but that could not contain the previous twenty-six that had been missing. Sam felt as though she had been robbed. She cried out to God, “Why?” She wondered why people in her life hurt her, why nobody was there for her. She was lost and lonely.
“Sam, why don’t you come with me tonight to my church?” her friend asked.
Sam never bothered with it before, she never had much room in her life for God but reluctantly, she agreed.
The speaker was a short, squat round woman from Tennessee. She belted out the song “Bind us Together” so loud that it vibrated the windows. She then gave her testimony of how she lost a lung to cancer but God continued to gift her in song. She paid special attention to Sam, it was as though she could peer into her soul and see every hurt and pain that she had ever felt and say, “It’s ok, I have you.”
After the service, the two prayed together and Sam received Jesus into her heart. She felt peace and love and finally she had someone in her life that would love her unconditionally just as she is.
The artist made the final touches to the portrait. His blending of the various colors created a vast blue sky and in that sky fluttered a beautiful butterfly. Its wings still a crimson red and delicately abstract, black still was part of its color but defined the body and contrasted brilliantly.
Pleased with His work, He hung the rendering over His mantle and sat down.
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I enjoyed this.
Blessings~
Be careful with some of your sentences. This line could easily be misinterpreted and reads a bit awkwardly: Then, in from around the corner walks her brother.
Instead, keep it simple: From the corner of her eye, she spots her brother slinking towards her.
By choosing specific words like slinking, you can foreshadow something bad is happening.
I really liked that you told this story in the present tense. It's not always easy to do, but it emphasizes your message that God is active in our life, right here with us every step of the way. I thought it was quite creative and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's one of my favorites so far this week.
Well told in the present tense.
Besides choosing more vivid words, as suggested, watch out for comma splices and run-on sentences. Also, you put a blank line between some paragraphs, but not always.
Editing and proofreading can be a "search and destroy" operation once you recognize your habits.