There is a story behind this canvas. I wanted to paint something for my sister and I originally painted with pink ombre effect. (Shade from light to dark pink) I was wondering what verse to write and finally wrote “You are loved” in silver sharpie. It wasn’t that visible. I gave it to my sister and she said this looks plain, why don’t you add some flowers to it. She also suggested a cotton swab technique which I was unaware of at that time. So I didn’t try, the canvas was just lying on the table.
My kid took it once and scribbled on it with pencil. My mom took great pains to rub it out. It was having the marks of it but not that bad. And we hid the pencils. Few days later, my kid managed to find a pen and scribbled on it. This time we could not erase it. I had seen photos wherein a mother transformed her kid’s scribbles into painting a master piece. So I tried to do the same, also tried to add in the technique my sister suggested. I just added tree and branches to hide all the scribbles but the end result looked so horrible. There were branches all over – some places thin, some places thick, the flowers didn’t turn out good, I didn’t like it at all, I was planning to throw it, but for the time being, stashed it away in a shelf.
Recently, when my sister came for a visit, the topic of this canvas came up and I showed her what a horror I had made it into. We just laughed and left it out as such. It was lying on my table. I had used black for the tree and most of the canvas was covered in black, so I decided to give it a try and painted it all black. And now this looked like a new canvas, where I could draw something else.
I decided to paint these yellow flowers – from the golden shower tree. We saw this tree for the first time in our Aunt’s house, when we went there for a vacation. We wanted to take photos near the flowers. (Those were the days when we had camera with film rolls). The flowers were higher up, so when we stood underneath it, we were not able to get a clear picture so my aunt gave us a stool and each of us climbed up and took a picture near the flowers. So this painting is a reminder of that vacation, of our childhood memories and of our sweet aunt who never forgets to wish us on our birthdays! I hope my sister likes this.
This whole story reminded me of how God gives us second chances in life. Sometimes we end up making a mess, but God in his wisdom and patience, gives us a second chance to turn our lives around and makes something meaningful and beautiful out of it, when we surrender to Him.
Thoughts: Hannah's Blog 
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