Trent, over at “Trent’s World” is hosting his “Weekly Smile” invitational again now, and I thought I’d throw in my reason for smiling this week. As many of my regular visitors know, I’ve been dabbling in watercolor painting this past year — primarily for the purpose of de-stressing. Playing with watercolor relaxes me. But the more I played with that medium, the more I got interested in adding a few other mediums to the mix as well, and the next thing I knew, I was playing with ink and then with a whole new set of markers, and who knows where it will lead next.

I’ve kept journals that were connected with my writing and with my ministry, but I had never started an art journal. So this Christmas I decided that I should put a good mixed-media journal on my list of wishes so I could use it to practice and experiment. And sure enough, I got a beautiful journal that is filled with a combination of excellent watercolor pages and sketch pages. Now, that really made me smile. But that wasn’t the end of the story, because every time I do something new in that journal, my smile grows wider. I’ve been doing watercolor, ink, graphite sketches, marker drawings, and poems — all in the same book. So I’ve been smiling a whole lot this past week.

I’ll share a few of the pages below, and just maybe one or two of them will make you smile as well.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!