Christmas Eve children's church service

children at Christmas church service

News of Great Joy

This illustration and the one in the header above first appeared in a series of children's stories published in Moody Monthly magazine, (I blogged about it here). I like the expression of the face of Mary, she looks like she is truly pondering on wonderful news.
Here at my own home today we received some joyous news from our daughter and son-in-law, in about six months we will become proud grandparents of our first grandchild!

the world

Woke up this morning to fresh snow, bitter cold blustery wind, and ice. This poem by Robert Frost was the first thing that came to mind.

Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice. 
Robert Frost 1923

This poetry combined with the unspeakable act of violence that happened a week ago in Connecticut, (I am still grieving) and the prediction of the end of the world today sums it. Lord have Mercy. Have Mercy upon us.

third Sunday of Advent

Advent is a time of quiet, of waiting for the Christ, for the Saviour of the World to come.

Yesterday was Rose Sunday. The third candle on the Advent wreath, the pink one.

The others are purple, for penitence. In Advent, we wait in darkness for the Light of Christ to come on Christmas. But the rose candle is a promise of hopes fulfilled, of joy that comes when prophecies are fulfilled.

I love the season of Advent, the four Sundays before Christmas. I love this time more than I love Christmas because... The Whole Big Christmas Day Deal is...just Too Much (for an introverted artist).

water in paradise

This post really should be titled "See A New Heart and a New Spirit". Because that is the title of the painting and the context of the Scripture passage.
The water in paradise is from my own interpretation and inspiration.
Here at the left is the lettering treatment that we are using consistently in the ten paintings. We are layering a deep red type design over a spattered and textured greenish background. Each of the texts is also layered with a bit of line art from the context of the artwork. This one has a thistle design to represent the desert where God is saving His people.

I am writing this post to explain some of the wonderful moments that have occurred in the creation process. Sometimes you don't know where all the ideas and bits and images flow from. Especially when so much research has gone into the work, and then it starts to come together.

Here is the text;  Ezekiel 36:24-28

24 “‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 28 Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God. 

(My notes) Water flowing from Temple/Ezekial, thistles, thorns, Dead sea becomes the living sea, Christ is the rock, Right side of Christ is heart, pierced, water flowing from right side of temple, Lot’s wife, water flowing out of right side of church to dead sea

giving life, fish, Church on Hilltop, redemption, Baptism.

I am showing this as a work in progress. It is Very Much not finished yet it is on display in the church narthex right now.

 Our process is to draw our design on the canvas with black wash, building up the light and dark tones on the canvas. We next add texture, using sand or a ceramic medium. When that dries we begin to apply a series of glazes of earth tones, building up, adding lights and darks, more texture and more glazes until a rich variety of tones and surface results.

Here at the right I have a partial view of the canvas as I was building up my drawing of a rocky landscape on one side, pouring waters in the center and a garden of Life on the far side. All of these images are the product of much research as I have said. I think it took us longer to come up with sketches in the first design phase than it has to get the canvas covered to this stage. 

This is a part of a fresco on the walls of an ancient  Roman villa. I used that fig tree as reference, and also added the bird.

I went to a personal experience deep within my memory as I drew the waterfalls and pools of Living Water. A few years ago my family and I made a trek to Guatemala. We saw some amazing sights from Mayan ruins to high mountain tropical rainforest. One of the loveliest memories is of Semuc Champey, a river and waterfall National monument way back in the mountains. It was not easily reached, certainly not in a one day trip, few tourists can make it.  The beauty of the clear turquoise limestone pools and the stepped cascades of rushing waterfalls is too much to describe, it can only be 

 experienced.  

As I was drawing, I realized that this vision of paradise and the peace of the flowing waters with lush foliage all about was the image active in my mind. When bits of the past and present flow together in the act of creativity there is a soul satisfying delight in the work.

The waters are also symbolic of the sacrament of baptism.  I had already been thinking of using ideas from famous Baptism of Christ works by Giotto or Verrocchio. This Eastern Orthodox icon image was influential. 

A constant in our overall design plan has been to use imagery from Romanesque sculptures, structures, and illuminated manuscripts whenever possible. The Church on the hill from which waters are flowing is a compilation of romanesque buildings, most like these photos of Glastonbury Abbey in England.

I leave with this  sketchy wash image of the canvas and promise to update when it is finished!

golden birthday

Today is my son's birthday. And it is 12/12/12 so we tease him that it is his "golden birthday". If there is such a thing, but then, all birth days are golden to remember.

intensity in worship and art

I have been intensely involved with art projects for my church. The Church of the Resurrection in Wheaton Illinois has moved to a new building, a re-habbed factory. The warehouse space has been transformed into a beautiful light-filled sanctuary. A wall of well-proportioned vertical spires of windows provides the best of natural light.

These past weeks I have poured myself into producing five more large paintings to portray the Easter Vigil readings from the Old Testament. I blogged about this before but just briefly. We have been working on a series of ten canvases to hang in the narthex of the new building. Above are the first five that were almost but not quite finished in time to display last Easter for the big Vigil service.

Here is the new narthex with paintings being installed.

And this past weekend we had our big Consecration services and the very first Sunday service in the new building. The staff wanted to hang all 10 of the paintings in the narthex for the big week. I wasn't comfortable with that because...they still aren't finished. Oh well, finished enough to share, but I must work on them a lot more in months to come.
I will write some more blog posts about the process in the next days.

life work

Two hour painting session at my life drawing class.

Celebrating a birthday

The birthday anniversary of this fine young man is today. And I remember his birth day very well and always.

And there could I marvel my birthday
Away but the weather turned around. And the true   
      Joy of the long dead child sang burning
                  In the sun.
           It was my thirtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon   
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.   
          O may my heart’s truth
               Still be sung
On this high hill in a year’s turning.

Dylan Thomas, “Poem in October” from The Poems of Dylan Thomas. Used by permission of David Higham Associates, London as agents for the Trustees of the Copyrights of Dylan Thomas.

Source: Poetry (February 1945).

Thanking God

for all our Blessings.

fading sunlight

Love is so short, forgetting is so long. Pablo Neruda

"Goldengrove unleaving"

Golden

Another one of my oil sketches from earlier this fall. And a poem which I love, and always comes to mind at this time of year.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What héart héard of, ghóst guéssed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

colors so bright

A color stands abroad
On solitary hills 
That silence cannot overtake,
But human nature feels.
- Emily Dickinson
Is there such a thing in nature as colors that are too intense? As I go out on the Prairie Path with my dog for our daily run I find myself reacting to the fall colors with an emotional intensity. The Reds! and the Golds! and the nearly fluorescent Oranges! It almost hurts my eyes to look too long.
I am fortunate to live now in this Midwestern part of the country where the fall colors appear every year , always surprising and stunning.  The brilliance is so much so suddenly, and behind that the knowledge that soon everything will be a monochromatic winter gray. The colors make me want to weep with joy or sob with longing.
Painting above is from my outdoor "en plien air" trip with oils and easel earlier this fall.

close-up

today is the 125th birthday of Georgia O'Keefe

Georgia O'Keeffe was born on 15 November 1887 in a farmhouse near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. 

As you can see from this recent work of mine, I owe her a lot.

 

Some familiar quotes...

Nobody sees a flower, really, it is so small. We haven't time - and to see takes time like to have a friend takes time.

If I could paint the flower exactly as I see it no one would see what I see because I would paint it small like the flower is small.

So I said to myself - I'll paint what I see - what the flower is to me but I'll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it - I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers.

...Well, I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower you hung all your own associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see of the flower - and I don't.
Georgia O'Keeffe

Highlights Magazine and sitting an exam

Who does not love Highlights Magazine for Children? Who does not have memories of reading back issues in a doctor or dentist office while waiting for Mom or the siblings to come back? I still read the issues when I am waiting in the office wherever.

This post is in honor of one of my kids who is sitting the ACT college entrance exam this week, we are hoping for his great success!

 And I should mention that another one of my daughters willingly posed for this illustration, making lots of funny faces for me. This illustration appeared with a poem in Highlights Magazine. I used my colored pencil style on this one (and for the LadyBug art previously), sometimes I switch materials if the story seems better served by a softer touch.

halloween costume

 What happens when a treater tries to grab too much candy! The last trick-or-treater to knock on my door yesterday got tricked!
When my kids were younger I made many very original costumes for them. I used fabric, foam, and acrylic paint to make almost anything we could dream up. I refused to make any costume "evil" though, no vampires or movie murderers! We had butterflies, fairies, tigers, various dinosaurs or dragons, a pink flying horse, a 4 ft. tall wide-mouth bass, a golden eagle, Braveheart, a huge fantastical red bird with golden wings, a peacock, and more that I can't remember now, they were used over and over until they fell apart. This carnivorous dinosaur stands about 4 ft tall and is worn on top of one's shoulders making it perfect for skulking behind the front hedges. It is a bit heavy so needs a larger kid to wear it!
This is what happens to kids with an artist-Mom, and a studio room full of supplies. We had so much fun with these.  ( I had dreams of working someday for the Muppets.)

Illustrating for LadyBug Magazine

LadyBug magazine is a multiple award winning publication for very young children. This is only one of the many publications from Cricket Magazine as the publisher. I have been reading these magazines to my own kids since they first began. Here is a story titled "My Baby Sister" that I illustrated for LadyBug. What an honor to be part of this top quality publication!
The month that I was assigned to this story, I had visited a special exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago of paintings by Mary Cassatt. Can you see the influence in the warmth of the family grouping?

and a pony story

The last series of stories that I was involved with featured a pony named Copper. Copper is cared for by a small girl and her older brother.















First step (of many) is my pencil line drawing, with some fun in the October issue with apple picking.

Ponies love to munch on apples.

more dog stories

Duke, a very large but gentle Great Dane became the hero of the next series. Duke was in the charge of two small girls. At first they lived in San Francisco but later in the series the family moved north so that they could play in the snow with Duke.

Guapo and his family

One more story about the friendly dog named Guapo.  (By now we have all guessed that his family is hispanic?)
These illustrations turned out so well that I have used them for my self-promotion, and on the home page of my website currently.



Guapo and his family are enjoying a day at the beach and it might appear that they live in Southern California, a place which is familiar to me since I went to college there.

Elena and Guapo splashing in the waves, with the rest of the family all at the beach. Here is a process bit, my pencil drawing scan for the digital art finish.

The big surprise in the end of the story is when they spot whales!
Notice what Guapo, that silly dog is doing? Smashing the sand-castle and getting his fur absolutely messy.