Naming the Animals

Adam names the animals

God loves to create.  He made animals of shapes and color combinations and processes that we could not have imagined.

At an illustrators' workshop a few years ago I met Iain McCaig whose job it was at that time (I don't know if it is still his job) to design monsters for George Lucas.  Design creatures: what a job!  Talk about playing God!  Because it's a monster, by definition a creature unencumbered by reality, the boundaries are wide open, and one is limited only by imagination.  Iain showed us how he freed his mind from the strictures of an unimaginative day or not enough caffein that morning.  He led us through a process that used objects at hand to reimagine as monster parts, and challenged us to design our own monster.  It was great fun, and when we were finished I had drawn a creature that I would not have imagined without using his method.

God did it (does he still do it?) his own way, from scratch.  There is a niche that needs a creature, and he finds a way to fill it, always with panache. 

Adam in this picture has not yet eaten the awful fruit.  He is a simple, straightforward, guileless man who has been given the joyful mandate to give names to all the animals as they parade before him.  He gives them names and so asserts his stewardship over them. 

I tried to include in this picture as many genres of animals as I could without getting confusing, and still have an elephant as the centerpiece.  (Could a picture of animals in general NOT include an elephant?)  So there are mammals, birds (one extinct), reptiles, and an insect.  They have to stand in for all the animals that are outside the border of this picture. 

Abraham greets his heavenly visitors

Sometimes I draw the same story over and over.  This is the fourth version of this one, from Genesis chapter 18. 

Three men come to visit Abraham, who is a semi-nomadic shepherd, living with his wife and his servants in tents. The travelers who come his way are few, and those who arrive are treated with the respect and hospitality we might assume would be accorded kings.  Like the bedouins of the Arabian peninsula, for Abraham the law of hospitality is absolute.  When these men come, he bows before them, asks them to stay to refresh themselves, and has a feast prepared for them. 
It is not clear whether or not he recognizes at first that they are heavenly visitors.  Perhaps this is the welcome he gives to all visitors.  But indeed soon he finds that it is God himself along with two angels he has been entertaining, and they have great news for Abraham and his wife Sarah: next year Sarah will have a son.  Abraham and Sarah have been waiting 25 years for this son, since the first time God gave the promise to Abraham, and now it is finally the right time. 

Moses and the Burning Bush

I suppose there are a lot of ways of depicting fire in a line drawing.  I looked at many photographs of fire, and of course not only is it evanescent, but it is ever-changing, and has a different appearance depending on the wind, on what is burning, and on circumstances that it would take someone more knowledgeable in physics than I to explain.  My aim was for the fire to be beautiful and flowing.  I looked for some inspiration to Aubrey Beardsley's gorgeous forms in black and white, those Art Nouveau shapes wherein Reality takes a back seat to pure line, but in the end Mood predominates.  I didn't want to make a moody image, but I did want the fire to have that elegance of line that is so much a part of Art Nouveau. 

Moses and Pharoah's daughter

Continuing to illustrate the handouts for my sixth grade Sunday school classes.  The subject matter is always available, the kids like the drawings, and I have an ongoing, low-pressure commission.  If I decide later that my skills have increased so that I can depict the story better, I'll redo it for next year.     

Jacob the Trickster meets his match in Uncle Laban

Genesis 25 begins the story of Jacob and his twin brother Esau.  Though they are twins, Esau is older, and thus stands to inherit everything from his father Isaac, including the covenant with God.  Jacob tricks his father into giving him the inheritance instead and then runs for his life to his mother's brother Laban, a man whose ability and willingness to deceive are even greater than his own.  It's a colorful and fascinating story about a man who would do ANYTHING to be blessed.  He is wrong-headed, and God teaches him a hard lesson, but his goals are in the right place. 

This is the first drawing that I have for this story for my class.  Laban's sons are behind him, and his daughters are under Jacob's outstretched arm.

Abraham and Isaac

ABRAHAM AND ISAAC

My Sunday school class gets first crack at my pen and ink drawings, though I don't tell them I did them.  They don't need to know that.

In this story, Abraham has been called by God to offer his only son Isaac as a sacrifice.  Abraham sets off to do his grim duty, determined to follow the instructions of the God of the universe, no matter how counter it seems to everything that has passed before.
Of course, once he has proved that he was willing, God stops him and tells him to offer a ram instead. 

I won't go into the theology of this story here though, just the art.   Abraham is old and determined; Isaac is young and trusting, but puzzled. 

Bible illustrating

THE ANGELS URGE LOT AND HIS FAMILY TO FLEE SODOM

For my sixth grade Sunday school class in Old Testament, since we use only the bible as our textbook, I try to provide some visuals for the kids. 
I may not actually use this piece, because it's really rather a minor story, but I am trying to learn to do pictures with more action in them, and this scene was full of action.  Sodom is about to be destroyed, and the two angels (looking like regular travelers) are trying to convince Lot's family that it is urgent that they leave NOW.

Looking at the work of some of the great illustrators: Howard Pyle, N C Wyeth, Seth Fisher, and I see tension, bodies in movement, and then I looked at my pictures, and they were all quite still.  I realized I needed to learn to portray the tension that is at the heart of a story where there is high emotion and high stakes.

When I started doing watercolors, I thought I was pretty much putting pen and ink aside.  But I do really love line drawings.  And for this purpose, for handouts to my students, I can copy these on the school copier, so black and white works where color would not.