Should I take up painting as a hobby?

[Lucian Hodoboc]

I'm thinking about taking up oil painting as a hobby. The only things I know about it are those that I've learned from online tutorials. I've never painted since middle school, and that was with watercolors on paper.

Should I do it? If yes, which art movements do you think I should study? I'm leaning towards abstract art, but I'm also drawn towards realistic painting.

I probably won't do it cause the OCD has me thinking that this is satan's way of distracting me from continuing to seek God, but... you know, I gave you all a topic to discuss.

 

[Lamb]

Do you have someone who paints that can lend you some of their supplies to see if you like it? I had relatives by me all new oil paints, canvases and brushes for Christmas one year (I had given all of my supplies to my daughter years ago) so I could start painting with oils again. Once I started I found out I didn't like it at all. I prefer to work with my chalk pastels instead. I'd hate for you to make the purchases and then find out you don't like it!

You could always try to paint things from scripture if you're afraid it could distract you from God?

 

[tango]

I'm thinking about taking up oil painting as a hobby. The only things I know about it are those that I've learned from online tutorials. I've never painted since middle school, and that was with watercolors on paper.

Should I do it? If yes, which art movements do you think I should study? I'm leaning towards abstract art, but I'm also drawn towards realistic painting.

I probably won't do it cause the OCD has me thinking that this is satan's way of distracting me from continuing to seek God, but... you know, I gave you all a topic to discuss.

I can't really tell you whether you should or shouldn't take something up. If you enjoy artistic craft then by all means go for it, but perhaps look for a local class or similar where you can use their supplies rather than having to buy your own. As Lammchen said, it's a shame to buy a load of stuff and only then find you don't like it.

I wouldn't worry about it being Satan's way of distracting you - you could say that about any hobby. I like the idea of painting scenes from Scripture, if that would help ease your mind. Of course you don't know exactly what people looked like, exactly what the land looked like etc but you can always create an artist's impression of it, and the more Scripture you read the more detail you might pick out. Maybe an interesting starting point would be when Moses fought the Amalekites with (I think) Aaron and Joshua supporting his arms so the Israelites would be victorious. You could even paint it from a perspective behind Moses, so you don't need to guess what he might have looked like.

 

[Lamb]

Is there a wine and paint event/class where you live? Here in the US they're all over and people sign up to drink wine and paint a picture to take home with them. All the supplies are given so you can meet people and see how you feel about the paints. I think they use acrylics though? I'm not sure because I've never been to one.

 

[Lucian Hodoboc]

I decided to postpone the project indefinitely due to health problems and lack of ability to discern God's Will for my life. But thanks for your pieces of advice.

@Lämmchen , what's your second favorite medium after chalk pastels?

 

[Lamb]

I decided to postpone the project indefinitely due to health problems and lack of ability to discern God's Will for my life. But thanks for your pieces of advice.

@Lämmchen , what's your second favorite medium after chalk pastels?

Graphite pencils. I like the woodless kind because they last a long time and I prefer to have a B6 to get the really dark areas as well as an HB and an H3 which is a harder one and gives light soft strokes.

 

[tango]

Your call whether to paint or not but I'd really caution against declining to take up any new hobby based on trying to discern God's will.

It's very easy to get caught up in the mindset that God has a very precise plan for your life and that the slightest deviation from the plan will cause you trouble somewhere down the line.

If you have a sense that God's will might take you somewhere that would clearly preclude following a particular hobby that's one thing but there's no need to worry that God has mapped out every minute of every hour of every day and will punish you if you don't adequately discern exactly what you were supposed to be doing at any given moment. Painting is the sort of thing you can do more or less anywhere.

 

[Lucian Hodoboc]

there's no need to worry that God has mapped out every minute of every hour of every day and will punish you if you don't adequately discern exactly what you were supposed to be doing at any given moment.

I've come across so many Evangelical preachers and "born again «I've found Jesus and have a relationship with Him»" people on YouTube, people who repeat the same "wait on God" and "always seek God's Will" in sermon after sermon and video after video, like broken records, that it has aggravated the obsessive-compulsive disorder I have to the point that I don't know what my purpose in life is, or whether I even have any purpose other than suffering while hoping that Jesus will have mercy on me after I die and sneak me into the lowest part of Paradise and give me a small place to exist without suffering for the rest of eternity. I mean, everything I've tried to do in my life I've messed up, and no one seems to care about me in this world. Now, after making me realize (to some degree) all the things I've messed up, God should allow me to attempt to fix some of the things I've done wrong, but He's allowing my health to decline so much that I'm scared I might be the guy who buried the one talent received from his master and didn't increase the value of what was given to him.

 

[tango]

If you're feeling fear like that the chances are it's not God at work. Why not use the skills God has given you in whatever way you can?

There are lots of kooks and nutjobs on sites like Youtube, plugging their own toxic theologies that either ignore the need for holiness in a quest for a feel-good theology, or preach endless hellfire and brimstone and present a God who is just looking for a reason to smite us (there are many other kinds of nutjobs out there, but these two seem the most relevant to what you're saying).

It's good to seek God's will for your life. It's not helpful when "seek God's will" turns into seeking God's will for every little thing in life. Some people seem to believe that God not only cares whether they wear the red pants or the blue pants but will punish them if they fail to correctly discern which pants God wanted them to wear that day. If, for the sake of an example, God's will for your life is that you become a Sunday School teacher and teach children about Jesus, there's room within that to enjoy painting.

ETA: Obviously there are some things that Scripture clearly tells us not to do. Things like that need to be avoided. But unless Scripture clearly tells us we must do something, or clearly tells us we must not do something, we can decide for ourselves whether or not to do it.

 

[NewCreation435]

I would think painting could potentially be somewhat expensive. I've actually never tried it though my mother has been painting for 40 years. I would start with just doing some drawing first

 

[Lucian Hodoboc]

But unless Scripture clearly tells us we must do something, or clearly tells us we must not do something, we can decide for ourselves whether or not to do it.

Is that just your personal opinion or is it grounded in Scripture?

 

[Lamb]

Is that just your personal opinion or is it grounded in Scripture?

1 Corinthians 10:23 says “Everything is permissible,” but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible,” but not everything builds up.

 

[tango]

Is that just your personal opinion or is it grounded in Scripture?

Lammchen already provided the quote from 1 Corinthians.

Ultimately Scripture tells us some things we must do and some things we must not do. The things where Scripture is silent are either permitted or not permitted. Some things can reasonably be deduced (e.g. there isn't a verse anywhere in Scripture that says we're not allowed to watch porn on the internet but it doesn't take a big leap of reasoning from what Jesus said about looking upon a woman with lust to figure we shouldn't be doing that)

If you want to take the view that we must seek explicit permission in Scripture to do anything you'd best cancel your internet connection, unless you can quote chapter and verse that says going online is permissible. Likewise all sorts of things - air travel, adding a distortion box to an electric guitar, wearing blue pants on a Thursday - end up prohibited. Your profile picture shows a collared shirt and tie - I don't see anything in Scripture that says you are allowed to wear a collared shirt or a tie, Scripture talks of tunics and robes and makes no mention of modern day business attire.

The obvious flip side to your question is to ask whether an assumption that anything not explicitly mentioned is not allowed is a personal opinion or grounded in Scripture.

Since the beginning of Scripture the rules have worked on a permissive basis - everything is allowed unless clearly prohibited. Adam and Eve were allowed to do pretty much anything and eat anything in the Garden of Eden, except eat the fruit of that one tree. Over time the rules became a list of things that must be done and a list of things that must not be done, with most of the rules being restrictions in the form of "Thou shalt not". Take a look through Leviticus and see how many of the rules were about things that were not to be done - everything from trimming the edges of beards to going back to gather crops dropped during harvesting to uncovering the nakedness of various family members to eating things with blood still in them - compared to things that were explicitly required.

 

[Lucian Hodoboc]

I decided to give it a try after all. Here's a recent painting I made. It's inspired by the Biblical scene in which Jesus asks blind Bartimaeus what he wants Him to do for him. He answers: "Master, I want to see!".

Spoiler

 

[Lamb]

Well done!! You used yourself as the model, I can tell and it's a nice resemblance to what I've seen your pictures look like. You have a lot of talent!

 

[Lucian Hodoboc]

Well done!! You used yourself as the model, I can tell and it's a nice resemblance to what I've seen your pictures look like. You have a lot of talent!

Thanks. With practice, I can only hope that someday I'll be at least half as skilled as you are. When are you going to post more of your works of art on CH?

 

[tango]

Looks like a pretty solid effort to me.

 

[Lamb]

Thanks. With practice, I can only hope that someday I'll be at least half as skilled as you are. When are you going to post more of your works of art on CH?

You're very kind. You have your own style though that I have a hard time emulating so I'm impressed!