PAINTING LIVE: Part 3 – an example

Please refer to Part 1 for WHY I paint 'live' and Part 2 for HOW I paint live. Here in part 3 I will give an example of WHAT I paint live.

TRUE TO YOUR WORD

'TRUE TO YOUR WORD' painted during worship at City Church Cambridge during the Sunday services, 27th Nov 2016 (acrylic and mixed media on canvas 24x30”)

The Ideas

My starting point for this piece was the passage 'Every word God speaks is sure, every promise pure'
Ps 12:6 from the Passion Translation Bible, which I came across in my daily bible reading and which seemed to leap out of the page at me. I researched passages that mention the word of God in the bible, and a fresh revelation and appreciation grew of the precious words that have been passed down and preserved through the generations. The truth that our faith is built upon.
'The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever'. Isaiah 40:8
'For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope'. Rom 15:4
'My word will not return to me empty but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.' Isaiah 55:11
'Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path' Ps 119:105
'The word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow.' Heb 4
'The Word became flesh and blood and moved into our neighbourhood.' John 1:14

my sketchbook

 I decided I needed to use colours that represented writing – ink blue and graphite grey. Black with white and orange with blue representing boldness and clarity, flesh colour representing Jesus. I wanted to include marks made with a biro and pencil, and to use lined paper and tracing paper. I wanted marks that looked like handwriting rather than actual words and use Morse code somehow. I wanted layering to represent the years and to use uncovering techniques for tell of the research and study, the delving into scripture. I wanted the piece to have a vertical lined feel as God's words comes down to us from above. I choose the title 'True to your word'.

The Creation

As I explained in part 2, our church has two morning services, I paint through both but only when the band are playing, which means a bit of stopping and starting takes place. Here is how my painting progressed through the morning. Click on each image to enlarge or hover to read about the techniques I used.

Whilst painting this at church one person commented that it looked like concrete (which linked in nicely with the idea of foundations), another said it looked like a waterfall and made them think of God pouring himself into their lives.

The 1.5 hours I get on a Sunday (broken into 10 & 30min chunks)
is never long enough for me to finish, so I took it home to work on
during the week. This one took another 5 ½ hours.

Once I felt it was complete I signed it, then photographed and shared it on my church Facebook page with an explanation.

The Explanation

This painting is a celebration of God's Word. What has been told and written down, copied and translated through the centuries, then became human, living on earth as the person of Jesus, and now lives in our hearts as the Spirit of Jesus, reminding us of his words and guiding us into all truth.
Layering represents the generations, straight lines for plumbline truth, tracing and lined paper, pencil & biro remember the dedication of scholars. The splashes of flesh colour and white represent the alive and active nature of God's word especially in the person of Jesus 'the way the TRUTH and the life'.
We believe God's Word as true, our faith is built on this foundation – I have shown this by printing with children's building blocks. What has been communicated through the ages speaks to us today sometimes clear as day in black and white, shouting clarity, other times needing research and study to unearth new riches and depths (hence the golden morse coded Ps 119 passage)

a closer look

The End?

I generally 'paint live' twice a month (once at our church's extended prayer & praise evenings and once during the Sunday morning services). I upload these paintings to my Facebook album Visual Worship 2016 - if you 'like' my artist page @FlourishandFly you can keep abreast of each painting as it is added (or follow me on Twitter or Instagram).
This November I exhibited the paintings that I have done 'live' since the start of the year, in my church gallery space, so people could see them finished. I hope to exhibit this work in other settings in the future. These pictures also go on the Paintings page of my website and are available for sale.

I hope you have found this three part blog post about 'painting live' helpful and interesting. If you have any questions, do get in touch.