John 14:23--29

This drawing was done for the Sixth Sunday of Easter gospel, in which Jesus tells his disciples that he is going away, but he will send the Holy Spirit to be with them.

It is meant to go on a folded sheet of letter-size paper, and printed 5 inches tall.

The readings for the season of Easter are all from Jesus' discourses in John's gospel.  They are all rather non-visual, a challenge to find an image for.  For this one, I decided on showing Jesus with the door through which he is going, though his hand could be reaching out in a gesture to his disciples as well as to the door handle.  

Good Dog

The Chinese (not Japanese) characters behind the boy say "Good dog" (at least that's what I hope.  The left hand one is Good and the right one is Dog.  If they would use a different way to say it in Chinese, I wouldn't know.).  This was the initial painting for a book that I am hoping to finish the illustrations for this year.  It's a true story of finding a puppy lost and cold on the streets of China, and bringing her home to America.

In fact, however, I don't expect to use this picture for the book.  I'd like the actual drawings to be somewhat simpler and flatter.  Also, the format will be different from this, with square pages.  So the image to illustrate this page, where the boy explains to the now grown-up dog that she came from China, will be a double page spread, twice as wide as high, and the text will be incorporated in the picture.  

But I liked this image.  I used my former next door neighbor boy Tate as a model for the boy in the picture.  He patiently posed for me, holding a stuffed dog and talking to it to try & get in the mood.

Gloria in excelsis deo

Glory to God in the highest!
(It sounds more glorious in Latin though.)

This image was done in an effort to make the sort of small, iconic drawings that can be found in books of liturgy, drawings that are meant to symbolize, rather than explain, a text.
I love the drawings by Br. Martin Erspamer, OSB, which are often found in Catholic liturgical guides.
I am not sure my particular style is suited to such a use, but how can I know unless I put enough true effort into the making of them?
I've done a few more, but this small one is the only one related to Christmas.  

Hiking by a stream

In the interests of helping Tofu read English (his Japanese reading is super, but he has much less opportunity to practice English), I have been sending him little stories, with pictures to go with them.  This picture is for a story about a boy named Tofu and his fictional canine friend Jonny, spending a cool Saturday morning floating dandelions down a stream to see which ones go the fastest (incidentally a surprisingly fun and unpredictable game).

When I was younger and thought I was a pretty good artist, I was concerned almost exclusively with how realistic my figures were.  That is still an issue, and I still have a long way to go, especially in drawing from my imagination rather than from life.  Nevertheless, it is not everything in a picture.  I must aim for the whole to be harmonious: form and color and the movement need to come together in a way that could be called beautiful.  Even in a picture such as this one, whose purpose is to accompany a reading lesson, if it is put together carelessly, it would be better to ditch it as not worth showing to anyone, much less sending to someone I love in a faraway place.  Everything I do is worth the time.  It's all for God and from God, who made every insect, every leaf, every molecule beautiful.  

The little Nativity book is available on Amazon

In spite of the sign that says, "Click to look inside," the image to the left is not a link.  Here is the link to the site on Amazon.
Thanks to the hard work and persistence of my friend Dana Chisholm, the words I put together to tell the Christmas story, along with the pictures I painted, are all  gathered together into a book.  It is amazing and wonderful, and I am looking forward to holding the book in my hands.

I have much more to learn about both writing and illustrating.  Having something actually in print makes me eager to learn all I can, and do more. 

St. Andrew's Abbey

Seth's grave (the one on the right)

Benedictine monks order their lives around prayer and work, in an undulating rhythm throughout the day.    The times of prayer are the main event, and work is inserted between them, in the hope that all work becomes infused with prayer, and becomes part of it.  St. Andrew's Abbey is a Benedictine monastery.

I spent four lovely days there, praying with the monks, and doing my work, which in this case was landscape painting.  It was a landscape painting retreat.  This is a genre that I have very little experience with, and no great love for, but I believe that an illustrator needs to be able to put landscapes into illustrations from time to time, and not be afraid of them.  I signed up for this retreat for several reasons: because I love the abbey, to visit Seth's grave, and in order to spend time painting landscape, the desert with its rocks, hills, and grey-green, often prickly foliage.  

This little painting is 8" x 8".  I sat there at the same time on each of two mornings, for an hour & a half or so each time.  Not long, but even so, the shadow from the cross moved quite a lot while I was there.  Plein air painting is tricky.

The curmudgeonly and usually right on target Stapleton Kearns said once (maybe more than once) that landscapes ought to have some mystery in them.  Maybe there's a little mystery here, but in any case I heartily enjoyed painting it.  The rocks and the foreground in particular made me happy; and being near Seth's gravesite always makes me remember the Life that he put into his life, the mindfulness with which he approached every moment of the day.  It's all actually very Benedictine, though at the time neither of us knew it.  

a modern Nativity

 Bob and I have been reading about life in the slums of Calcutta c. 1970, in a beautiful book called CITY OF JOY by Dominique Lapierre.  There was a movie some years back, taken from a section of the book (a movie I never saw, with Patrick Swayze), which covered only a small portion of this gripping nonfiction story.

As I read the book, I realized that Jesus came to be among the poor, not the comfortable.  When he was born, Bethlehem was full of travelers, and Mary and Joseph were just two more strangers in a crowded town.  The place they were offered for the birth of the child was only available because nobody else wanted it.  They would have empathized with migrant workers, with slum dwellers, with all the unwelcome and uncared-about of the world.

So when I was thinking about Christmas images, I looked for pictures of migrant workers, of poor people in various parts of the world for my references.  Mary and Joseph have a spot in a run down and junk-strewn part of town, but they are glad to have someplace, and in God's love, it is turned into a place of light.