Art Stories

A couple of years ago I saw a documentary that described how we see colour. In a nutshell, it was saying that we see colour because light interacts with matter and that interaction determines the colour we see. (Correct me, scientists, if I’ve worded that wrong.)

But that description really spoke to me about how when God’s light shines on us, it causes all of our colours to come forth and shine.

This exact image came to mind as I was telling a friend about this and she said, “Ooh, there’s a painting in there!”

‘From Out Of Waters’ started as a mistake. I painted over the same canvas a number of times until I was left with a blue base that looked something like water. I sat the canvas on my easel and simply stared at it.

As I looked, I saw the purple flowers and so I painted them in.

Then I waited.

A couple of days later I saw the white flowers. So again, I painted them in; then I waited.

Already this painting had begun to speak to me about emerging from water. When I was diagnosed with cancer last September, I felt the Lord speak to me through Isaiah 43:

“When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown…” Isaiah 43:2 (NLT)

I felt certain I was meant to be adding some writing in the bottom left hand corner but I didn’t know what it was. I wondered whether I should paint in the verse from Isaiah but somehow it just didn’t seem right.

A little while later, I went to stay with a friend. One day as I was lying on the bed, the poem on this painting just ‘dropped’ into my mind. I knew from the first line that it was being given to me for the painting – it was such an unexpected surprise!

So from beginning to end, this painting was an adventure. I never knew the next step until it came to me but every step was one filled with beauty and promise and life.

In September 2010, I was inspired to start drawing a photo that my friend had posted on his Facebook page. I made good headway for a while but then got discouraged by how much detail I’d put in it and so it sat unfinished in a drawer until March 2017, when I finally finished it.

In September 2017, I was diagnosed with cancer.

As you might expect, the treatment plan I was placed on was 6 months’ chemotherapy. I was going to have poison pumped into my blood for a good couple of hours every fortnight… and I prayed.

Because I know God can heal, instantly. It doesn’t take a second thought for Him to be able to do it. And I was scared.

But strangely, every time I prayed, I simply felt His assurance that He would be with me and He would hold me through it all. And then, one day, this drawing that had taken me 7 years to finish suddenly caught my eye. The writing on my friend’s hand refers to the verse Mark 16:18 from the Bible. I didn’t remember the whole verse but I remembered this bit:

“…and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all…” (NIV)

Somehow, it felt like assurance…

And it was.

I started this painting in July 2017. Somewhat out of the blue, I had just decided to sit in the garden and paint and this is what came to mind. At once I had the title for it: ‘We’ll Be Safe Here’.

I didn’t know at the time, but two months later I was to be diagnosed with stage 3 lymphoma.

The painting sat unfinished in my room throughout most of my treatment (despite me feeling a couple of times that I should work on it more) but towards the end of the chemotherapy, I decided to get it out and finish it. As I was working on it, Mum came in and asked me what I was trying to say through the painting and I responded, “It’s all about safety, about being completely protected, with the promise of hope on the horizon…

Oh!”

And suddenly I realised that this painting, which I had started before I even knew I was ill, was all about the season I was just about to walk through and a promise for coming out the other side.

In October 2015, as I was praying and worshipping, I began to paint. As I drew abstract brush strokes across the canvas, the face of a lion began to emerge above the trickling clouds that had formed beneath him. But for several months afterwards, the canvas remained unfinished on its easel in my bedroom.

Last week, God woke me in the night and told me to finish His painting.

In fact, He told me twice.

So I finally picked up my paintbrush again and got to work.

After I finished it, I felt no leading as to whether or not to publicise it but today, I had the incredible joy of knowing what purpose God had for it.

I was due to go to a day of prayer and worship and on the way out of the front door I said to my mum, “I feel like I’m maybe meant to bring my painting, but I’m not sure if that’s just me.” At once she insisted that I listen to the still small voice and so I ran back in to grab the canvas. On my way down the stairs, I heard the Lord say one word: “Gift”.

And that was it.

Once at the meeting, I felt the prompting to show the painting to the congregation, which I did without words, for the Lord had not given me anything to say. Later that afternoon, a man came up to me and asked after it. With tears in his eyes he told me that as soon as he saw it, the Lord had begun to speak to him about His Majesty and it had triggered such a breakthrough in his life. One of the words I had felt as I was painting it was ‘Majestic’ and I immediately knew this painting was a gift for him. “Then it is yours!” I said, and he exclaimed, “It is my birthday today! I am 50 years old today!”

As I had only recently finished the painting, it was yet unsigned and so I was able to sign it personally addressed to its recipient.

God is wonderful.

Admire beauty
Let it penetrate the very core of your being
Let it erupt from deep within you
As the love song of your life
Going out into the world
Like butterflies

One day as I was praying, I was overcome by the extent of the need in the world and I was crying out to God about it. In my mind, I saw millions of faces of all the many, many people who are hungry, destitute, in poverty, in slavery, oppression etc. Then suddenly, it was as if I was zooming out from all these faces and I saw them all fit inside the scars on Jesus’ hands.

This painting was inspired by that vision.