Coastal Art ~ Loran Chavez: Free to be me

Thursday, July 10, 2025

This one was so lovely to paint!

After a morning of travel back and forth to Mobile, (2.5 hours).

I came home to get started back on dinosaurs.

I am currently finishing up the triceratops with a lot of help.

You see, our church family is amazing because there

is always someone willing to lend a hand when needed.

Talents and gifts are like that, to be used for the Glory of the Kingdom and are a

form of Worship as well.

My gifts astound me frequently, as there is always something asked of me, and I say how?

Somehow the how becomes clearer and the talents are always fun to see bear fruit.

But there is usually one person I can always count on to lend a helping hand.

That person for me is Sarah.

She is always cheerful, ready to get messy, and we have many deep

conversations while we are working together.

It really helps that my grandson is apparently becoming fast friends with her son Luke as well.

The boys play together, and Chris took them today to have lunch and go see a movie.

I am glad God sent them into our lives.

The reason Sarah is so wonderful is because I can walk away and

trust that the job will be done to the best of her ability.

For example, I had a meeting with the Children's pastor less than an hour after we got started.

I left Sarah in charge of herself, and she zoned in to complete a large portion of the Triceratops before I came back.

I'm so glad to call her friend and fellow Christian.

When I came back from the meeting we quickly went to finishing the paper mâché.

They actually went quicker than I thought they would, considering we had five of them to build.

We've also got quite a bit of detail work left on them.

But first a layer of dark gray paint on everything.

We can then detail them during the mass build the last full week of July.

Summer Surge is rapidly approaching, and I am racing to the finish line.

It's going to be epic!

I painted this evening after a meal of pizza and salad.

Always delicious and a good time with family.

I chatted with my sister-in-law while painting and hearing about her day.

Grandson came upstairs and started a program on Disney that we were both watching.

I continued to paint, remembering talking with my dad while creating.

I used to talk with him almost every night while painting and I miss learning about family.

He was very proud of me as an artist and would speak frequently to the nurses while in the hospital.

We don't tell our loved ones how proud we are about their accomplishments nearly enough.

Complement someone every day, tell them how much you appreciate them being in your life.

Coastal Art ~ Loran Chavez