Landscape Painting in Pastels: 2016

Sunday, October 9, 2016

PDF/ eBook Format

Since I first shared Landscape Painting in Pastels as a blog, I've had people ask me to offer it as an PDF they can read or print. Finally it's here for you. Just click on the link below:

Landscape Painting in Pastels PDF

If you want to print the book, open the PDF, right click, choose print and away you go. It's 142 pages. I really hope many of you will find this helpful.

Or you can also go to www.bloxp.com and make a nice little eBook, which you can save in any or all of three different formats. Free. Clean, easy to read, ready to go on your Kindle, if you like. I recommend you add a Table of Contents, and delete all the posts after The End. It's easy and quick.

I humbly apologize to those of you who have already laboriously copied and pasted page after page, and printed them out for yourselves.

I'm afraid the rest of this post is only going to make sense to Christians.

We crazy-seeming Christians have some odd values, but we live in an upside-down world. If knowing you can have the PDF version of the book is all that matters to you, let me just wish you well. I hope you'll enjoy this format. Feel free to print out one copy for yourself, if you want one. Blessings to you...

If you're staying with me, I have to confess something here. I've been reluctant to push the buttons to make this happen because I haven't really been giving this book away with the heart of joy that God wants us Christians to have.

But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver. (2 Corinthians 9:6-7)

I have sowed rather sparingly, grudgingly giving this book out of necessity.

I wrote this as my 'retirement income', fully intending to approach publishers and envisioning it as the way I could take care of myself when I retired. If you aren't a Christ follower, the fact that I chose to give it away might not make a lick of sense to you, but those of you who know the Lord probably get it. This isn't a do-it-yourself life, it's a life of dependence on the Lord.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

I was led to believe that the best thing I could do was to find a way to give this book away, freely and completely. If I hadn't been certain that the Lord Jesus was directing me to trust Him in this, I never would have done it. He surely doesn't intend that everyone do this same thing, but He made it clear to me. Maybe you've had this same kind of certainty about something else.

After hesitating for about two years, I capitulated, knowing that when I surrender to His will things always go better for me. Yet, as I said, I gave with a grudging heart.

I know that when I draw near to God, He will always draw near to me (James 4:8), so recently I started digging into the dark corners to find out why I just haven't had much joy. I realized I was obeying Him but not responding to His grace. I wrote "Freely you have received, freely give," but I held back a little.

Jesus has so graciously let me find my way to this issue over the course of six years, but now the Lord wants me to GIVE this book. Fully. And I do.

Today I came to the realization that I could invest cheerfully in giving more by figuring out how to make a PDF file you can access and print. I'm so glad to be able to do this and I hope the format works. Look into www.bloxp.com or any other platform you want to use for making a blog into an eBook.

May the Lord bless you as you use this book. I hope it brings you JOY!

Deborah

A GIFT

I contemplated selling this book, but in the final analysis I decided that it was better to give. Jesus tells us, "Freely you have received, freely give." So I will. I hope you enjoy and benefit from it.

I'm a Christian, a Jesus follower. He gave His life away for the greatest reason possible: so everyone could understand that we can have eternal life. As a follower, I give my life away freely, too, though not like He did (since I'm obviously not God.) My firm belief is that...God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners....For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

A disciple becomes like the one she follows, and one day I realized that about the neatest way I could give my 'life' away was to give this book away to anyone who wanted to read it! But I couldn't afford to print it and send it out, so doing it online was the best way--on a blog it could be freely given. Jesus said, "Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be." Heart follows treasure... My treasure is Jesus!

With my blessings,
~Deborah

Maybe you know that God loves you, but you also realize that you’ve done things that are wrong—you’ve sinned. That sin separates you from God. Out of His great love He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to die as the sacrifice to pay for your sins. His resurrection is the ultimate evidence of eternal life. When you recognize your need and want to begin to live as a new creation, you can ask Jesus to be your Savior and Lord in prayer. There's no hocus-pocus here, just the reality of faith and new life in Christ. That is the real gift here!

MAKING COPIES

This book is not available in traditional print form. It is now available in PDF format, which should make it easy for you to print ONE copy for your personal use.

You may also use one of the eBook platforms (such as www.bloxp.com) to make a one-off eBook, which may be downloaded in any electronic format you wish for your own personal use.

Please don't copy and post it online anywhere without my express, written permission. (debsecor (at sign) gmail (dot) come) Instead, please use a link to the chapter you want to share. Thanks so much for understanding.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Maggie Price for her help in conceiving and executing this as a workbook beginning back in 1993, and for encouraging and fostering my writing ability. I learned tremendous amounts writing under your guidance for the first five years of The Pastel Journal’s existence, and I’m so grateful for the opportunity you first gave me to begin writing professionally.

F+W Publications originally published several of these chapters as articles featured in The Pastel Journal, although many of them have since been further edited as I’ve discovered more about the subjects. I especially want to thank editors Maureen Bloomfield and Anne Hevener, each of whom has helped me along the way, as well as the entire staff of editors that have consistently corrected and improved on what I've written.

Many thanks to Philip Van Hulle for editing these pages. I’ve learned over the years that a good editor works hard to make the author look better than she is.

The people who have passed through my classrooms for over 20 years have acted as the catalyst for this book, constantly seeking to understand more, consistently asking excellent and engaging questions that required me to find the bottom line, and providing the enjoyment of watching them journey along the pastel pathway. I meant it every time I said, “It’s looking good. Keep going!”

A special thanks to my Thursday art gang who have kept coming back for many years of fun, work and growth. Some have come and gone, but you all know who you are. It’s a privilege to teach such a talented group. I couldn’t do it without you. You always make ME look good!

Pages

Sunday, October 9, 2016

PDF/ eBook Format

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