This was great practice for painting a night time scene, I really loved using masking fluid along the edge of the tree to create a glowing effect of the moonlight shining down from behind. I cant wait to use that technique again. I was inspired by Chris Dunn for that particular technique, he has a few instagram videos showing how he does it. If you have any questions please ask in the comments.
✥ The Quote I reference/butcher:
God has loved us without being loved, but we love Him because we are loved. We cannot be of any profit to Him, nor love Him with this first love. Yet God demands of us, that as He has loved us without any second thoughts, so He should be loved by us. In what way can we do this, then, since He demands it of us and we cannot give it to Him? I tell you: through a means which He has established by which we can love Him freely, and without the least regard to any profit of ours: we can be useful, not to Him, which is impossible, but to our neighbour...To show the love we have to Him, we ought to serve and love every rational creature...Every virtue receives life from love, and love is gained in love, that is, by raising the eye of our mind to behold how much we are beloved of God. Seeing ourselves loved, we cannot do otherwise than love...So thou seest that we conceive virtues through God and bring them to the birth for our neighbour. -- Saint Catherine of Sienna
Transcript:
Once upon a time, there was a little girl whose father and mother had died, and she was so poor that she no longer had a room to live in nor a bed to sleep in. At last, she had nothing else but the clothes she was wearing and a little piece of bread in her hand that some charitable soul had given her. She was, however, good and pious, and as she was thus forsaken by the world, she went forth into the country, trusting in dear God.
Then a poor man met her who said, "Ah, give me something to eat. I am so hungry." She handed him her entire piece of bread, saying, "May God bless it for you," and went on her way. Then came a child who moaned and said, "My head is so cold. Give me something to cover it with." So she took off her cap and gave it to the child. When she had walked a little farther, she met another child who had no jacket and was freezing, so she gave her jacket to that child. A little farther on, one begged for a dress, and she gave her dress away as well.
At length, she made her way into a forest. It was already dark. Then there came yet another child, and she asked for a shift. The pious girl thought to herself, "It is a dark night and no one can see you. You can very well give your shift away." She took it off and gave it away as well. Thus she stood there with nothing left at all when suddenly some stars fell down from heaven, and there were nothing else but hard, shining tars. Although she had just given away her shift, she was now wearing a new one, which was of the very finest linen. Then she gathered the money into it and was rich all the days of her life.
"The Star Taler" is a fairy tale that was collected by the Grim Brothers in either the late 1700s or 1800s - I don't remember right now. But I think, as with most fairy tales, they have a wealth of knowledge behind them which I won't or can't go into because I'm simply not very good at explaining those sorts of things. I think the gist of it is that instead of seeking to possess earthly objects, we should focus on loving, helping, and supporting those around us—our neighbour, our family, our friends.
The only way we can love God, and I think I'm quoting or paraphrasing St. Catherine of Siena, is through loving our neighbour. God can't do anything with our love because he is perfect, whole, and, um, yeah, perfect. So he doesn't need our love, but the way we can love him is through loving our neighbours and helping those around us, and not through acquiring earthly possessions or clinging to temporary objects. Instead, loving human beings is an act that is eternal. But yeah, that's what I think. I might be completely wrong; I might be way off or completely misunderstanding it. Feel free to correct me, but hopefully, what I said was at least in alignment with Christianity. If it is, then I'll be happy. If it's not, then I'll have to fix that.
