Alleluia! Christ is Risen

He is risen indeed!
My banners were part of the Saturday night Easter Vigil service again. They were raised during a dramatic series of choral anthems which accompanied the traditional scripture readings of the story of creation.
It was a wonderful occasion of worship and rejoicing.

The service was moved to a different worship space this year in order to accommodate more people, but as my banners were designed for a smaller stage they didn't come off as well. At least I felt that way, but when all the ribbons and flowers and Alleluia were layered on at the end, it was a joyful time.

no more sad stuff

Oh I am so tired of my last sad post. I must get back to the good stuff.
I will have a busy week ahead, it is Holy Week, and I am involved in the big banner project again.
I posted about it last year. It was an epic process, here, and here, and here.
I have all the banners in my studio right now (very crowded) and I want to repaint some parts. These will be used again as part of the Saturday night Easter Vigil service at the Church of the Resurrection. Also for the Sunday morning service.
Does every artist long to re-do the image immediately after it is first displayed? Or, is it just me?

One foot in front of the other

I am trying to get back on my feet after a month away from home and the art studio. These little sketches of a friends' dogs were my first chance back at drawing from life which I love to do and found very therapeutic. Most of the time I don't think of art as therapy because I take it so seriously-it is hard Work!

I do however, consider a sweet dog to be therapy.

The reason I have been out of the studio is a difficult matter to share in a blog, but I will just say this, my father died last month from cancer. I was with him and my mother, helped with the hospice care, and tried to do all I could to help with the funeral. Now, we must take it one step at a time to continue our lives without him.

In the Beginning, God Created...

And this is how I illustrated that incredible statement. 

In the Anglican tradition the Easter Vigil service is the most exciting and dramatic celebration of the year. The Vigil begins in the dark with the lighting of the new Pascal Candle. Then, Scripture readings and music retell the story of The Bible and salvation. The banners were raised one by one with the reading from each verse from the first chapter of Genesis. 

 I love the part where it says "And God saw that it was good."   "And there was evening and there was morning, the first Day".  It reminds me of (my favorite books) the C. S. Lewis Narnia series, in The Magician's Nephew where Aslan is creating Narnia by singing the stars and trees and creatures into being.

 After the readings, and a sermon, and baptisms, and Communion, the Alleluia! is shouted and sung and a sheer scrim with Alleluia! sewn beautifully by another artist was lowered in front of my banners. It was a joyous celebration and all the art and flowers continued into the Sunday morning services.

My photo above was taken at the end of the Saturday night service.

These are close ups that I managed to get on Sunday morning before we took it all down.

You can't see the whale in these photos, it is covered by the letter a at the end. An unexpected bit of humor came when the fifth banner was raised with all the birds and fish. The whale is stylized and cartoony cute but I didn't expect a huge laugh to occur in the congregation at that moment. A public laugh at my art, how funny!  I loved it.

Process of creation

The past week has been an intense time of creating and then celebration of the final work of art. I thought a lot about creation and the process that we went through.  

This is not about the process of creation with a capital C.  I  give the glory to God of the Process of Creation. 

The six banners that I was in charge of producing for our church celebration of the Easter Vigil were pretty much painted in just six days. Not really enough time, but that is how it had to happen. I began sketching them out and measuring the 5 ' width by 12 ' length here at home in my studio and across my entire living and dining room ( I pushed or removed all the furniture).

 I had a couple of days to use our church hall to paint on long tables, using big jars of acrylics from a hobby store. I haven't ever painted anything this large and it took some learning to mix the colors and figure out the size of brush that worked best. I ended up favoring a 2 1/2" house painting brush. 

During this week I had lots of help from volunteers and family members for which I am very grateful. 

Wednesday night I had to move everything, wet banners and bowls of paint mixtures back to my house to finish because the church hall was being used for Holy Week services!  All the work had to be finished and ready to hang by the end of Friday night as the work team had to set up for the Saturday night service by midnight Friday night. It was a frenzy during the day on Friday! And then, it was all over, I couldn't do another thing about it.  As the artist I suffered some misgivings when I lost a bit of control over how the final product looked. It wasn't quite what I would have envisioned at the end. Another valuable learning experience.

It was a truly joyous moment in the church service when the banners rose with the readings from Genesis that evening. I enjoyed the reaction from the congregation immensely.

How rarely does an illustrator have a big audience to respond noisily and enthusiastically to her work?  

Now it is Monday morning and I have to clean up my studio and a huge mess. This mess is so colorful I took a picture of it.

to dust you shall return

Today is Ash Wednesday. I worship at an Anglican church and find this day of repentance and contemplation to be deeply comforting. It is like the feeling at the beginning of a new year, start again, don't look back, be forgiven and go in peace.

This painting is one that I did a couple of years ago at the beginning of Lent, it is 36" by 48", acrylic on canvas.

Drawing in church

Something that I can't help myself from doing is sketching. I listen just as well when my hands are busy. Really I do, although my teachers in grade school weren't convinced.

I draw in church, discreetly, I hope, in my moleskin.