From doodles to paintings.

[Peter]

Hello Talk Jesus members.
One way for me to share my fellowship, life journey, testament, and love for Jesus Christ and God is through my art.
I am not a prolific artist, more irregular than not - just a few doodles, drawings and paintings.
I will post an artwork without comment, unless it is part of the title or artwork itself.
Please feel free to make a comment on them, especially if it moves you in any particular way.

 

[Peter]

 

[Christ4Ever]

Curious.........why the alien persona as the internal being?
C4E
<><

 

[Fragrant Grace]

I will post an artwork without comment, unless it is part of the title or artwork itself.

Greetings @Peter

I am not a very artistic person at all
I love nature and stand in awe at the beauty of God in creation.....but get rather stuck when looking at pictures/doodles particularly obscure ones.

It would probably really help me if you could make a comment on your artwork to explain to someone as unartistic as me what the pictures means to you.

Blessings

 

[Peter]

Curious.........why the alien persona as the internal being?
C4E
<><

It is what I saw.
Let me explain. Many years ago my beloved said she no longer wanted to see me. I was shocked by the sudden turn around, I panicked and started asking questions as to why.
She said, "I can see you are upset. Let's go for a picnic by the river."
"A picnic!" I said. She said "Yes, we always liked doing that." I thought, "this no time for a picnic, it is time for Panic Stations!"
I was speechless, but I knew she was right about being calm about this. So, in total silence, we packed our picnic and went to the riverside. She picked a spot and I unfolded the blanket and we both sat on it. Still speechless, I watched her face while she prepared the lunch. I knew I most probably will never see her again. In my acceptance of my loss I found that I still loved her. It was like falling in love again but without reason other than being grateful to have met her in my life.
Suddenly her face disappeared and in place was a light being looking at me as if to say, 'Oh, you can see me.' Then I realized what I saw was who we really are, and that my whole life was just a fabrication of my mind. As quickly as I realized this, the light being disappeared and the face returned.
Now I was in another shock, but one of clarity. I broke the silence to tell her what just happened. I told her she is free to do what she wanted to do. That I have no right to claim her, or expect anything from her at all, because who she really is is a spiritual being.
Well, now she went into shock as to how I started to see everything differently. In fact I saw my whole existence, up to that point in time, as being back-to-front, to the Greater Reality.
In short, she decided to keep visiting me for another eleven years. We always lived apart, but every time she visited me, It was like receiving a gift, and every time she left I was so grateful to have met her, yet knowing that I may never see her again.
I believe what happened at the picnic was a result of my first experience of being unconditional in loving someone.
What I saw is exactly what my avatar is about.
As a result, my whole life has changed and still is. The biggest outcome is I love loving the Love (God) that loves me.

 

[Peter]

Greetings @Peter
I am not a very artistic person at all
I love nature and stand in awe at the beauty of God in creation.....but get rather stuck when looking at pictures/doodles particularly obscure ones.
It would probably really help me if you could make a comment on your artwork to explain to someone as unartistic as me what the pictures means to you.
Blessings

Hello Fragrant Grace.
Okay, I will do so.
The first images are doodles or 'searching for answers' type drawings as how to represent unconditional love.

I imagined unconditional love like a flower that emitted fragrance (love); as opposed to seeking love. However, as I was drawing the second flower, I realized that unconditional love is not based on what we see. So, I took away the image of the flower looking back.
Then I drew the sketch again but with people instead, and tried to work out how to represent an unconditional face without showing the spiritual being behind it.
As I explained in the above post, My unconditional love came before the spirit vision. I was loving the person and not what the face represented, or looked like.

In this sketch, I realized how make-up was an added layer, or veil, covering the truth. How though it was pretty, yet in truth it was creating a deception that took my imagination farther away from the truth.
Today, every time I see make-up, I get reminded of this and our inner self.

 

[Peter]

Here is another sketch I found, in my art notebook, that places the spirit being in the person's profile.

 

[Fragrant Grace]

I believe what happened at the picnic was a result of my first experience of being unconditional in loving someone.
What I saw is exactly what my avatar is about.
As a result, my whole life has changed and still is. The biggest outcome is I love loving the Love (God) that loves me.

Thank you for explaining @Peter

It is lovely to know that through your artistic expression your love for the Lord has deepened.

It certainly was of great value to have your explanations for I would have probably interpreted the pictures very differently.

 

[Peter]

Thank you Fragrant Grace for your input.

Here are two ink sketches that came to mind about Matthew 11:28-30
28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Before being born again, my life seemed like this.

At re-birth, I started to straighten up.

 

[Peter]

Many years ago, while in the RAAF, I volunteered to become a wounded soldier in a Medi-Vac exercise.
My role was to complain about the pain I was receiving from my amputated leg. 'Phantom limb' they called it.
From this role-play I started wondering if our spirit being has anything to do with this phenomenon.
Then I started wondering about other lifeforms too.

 

[Peter]

Inside cover of Bible (cue card)

 

[Peter]

In 1990, I was living alone in the city of Sydney. Worked as an electronics technician, and in my spare time I studied physics - a hobby interest. I just finished reading, and doing the maths, from a university textbook on subatomic physics. I sat at my desk for a good hour, recapping everything I learnt from this book . While doing so, I became filled with awe. Then it occurred to me that there must be a God that started it all. So I prayed, “God, I am certain you exist, please help me to get closer to you.” Suddenly I got a knock on the door. I thought, 'Who could that be? I don't get visitors!' So I answered the door, and there was this young women who simply said, “Would you like to come to a bible study?” Well, what else could I say but "Yes." Now if that was not a Godsend, I do not know what is.

A few weeks later, the young men of the Sydney Church of Christ baptised me in Lane Cove River. The invigorating heartfelt spiritual experience quickly surpassed the pain I just received, from slashing my foot on broken glass, at the time of submersion.

The next day I made a sketch of my baptism.

 

[vangard]

Interesting drawings. The first one, because of the flower on the left and then the color of the shirt (on the right) just like the grass recalled me this verse "all people are grass, their consistency is like the flower of the field" (Isaiah 40.6-8)

 

[Peter]

Hello vangard.
Great verses from Isaiah 40:6-8.
As I was finding them in my bible, I thought, 'all things come and go, but only Truth will remain.'
Thank you for sharing.
_________________________________
I was about to post another few sketches, when I saw your response. The following two sketches also include grass and flowers.
It is about stepping out of the darkness. And how it takes faith to leave everything you already know, to step into something we do not know yet (as such).

After my baptism, my life was seen from a different light. It was only then did I realize how my past life was so much in the dark.
Much like not knowing how black black is until seeing how white white is.

1Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

The dark forest represents the mind.
Each tree is a story - a falsehood that makes up the forest.
The people living in the forest are Egoists. They fear the light for it may reveal there true nature.
As they venture closer to the open field (heart) they cling onto the trees (stories for staying in the forest) for fear, and even hide behind them.
It takes faith to let go of all our stories and step into a place that has no ego stories to hold onto.

 

[vangard]

Hello vangard.
Great verses from Isaiah 40:6-8.
As I was finding them in my bible, I thought, 'all things come and go, but only Truth will remain.'
Thank you for sharing.
_________________________________
I was about to post another few sketches, when I saw your response. The following two sketches also include grass and flowers.
It is about stepping out of the darkness. And how it takes faith to leave everything you already know, to step into something we do not know yet (as such).

After my baptism, my life was seen from a different light. It was only then did I realize how my past life was so much in the dark.
Much like not knowing how black black is until seeing how white white is.

1Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

The dark forest represents the mind.
Each tree is a story - a falsehood that makes up the forest.
The people living in the forest are Egoists. They fear the light for it may reveal there true nature.
As they venture closer to the open field (heart) they cling onto the trees (stories for staying in the forest) for fear, and even hide behind them.
It takes faith to let go of all our stories and step into a place that has no ego stories to hold onto.

Thank you, Peter!

Your dark forest also make me think of our situation in the world as believers: everything (including our past and stories) is getting so dark around us! I say that because of the contrast of your white character (yet a little more grey than white): we are light and salt in a dark world. Thinking of Lot being tormented in the midst of the corrupted Sodom.
I'm also an artist and thank you for sharing your thoughts and artwork. Considering you mentioned being a veteran and having lost the use of your legs I'm touched by all what you've shared. You sure have suffered a lot. Surprising thing: it seemed to me that your greatest lost was your loved one when she left but I could be wrong (I say that because it was the first thing your posted).
I've been to very difficult times myself lately with tremendous adversity in about every single thing me (and my husband) have been facing and I don't understand why all these things are happening and what God wants us to do.

Unfortunately, I don't have the possibility (and time) to paint or draw to express how I feel at the moment nor have I taken the time to share it with words in this website. Thanks to this website somehow replacing the church that is no longer faithful to the Truth. It's a great blessing in these difficult times!

One thing I can say is: I'm a Canadian living in Texas and in the last few days I saw houses damaged by tornados around here. I saw houses flooded and people putting their furniture on the sidewalk. I heard of some people in the neighborhood being drowned in the flood and washed away in the bayou.
Yes, lots of hardship and adversity in our life lately but yet the LORD remains faithful in little things. The house here hasn't been flooded (like many others around) and we're still alive! Thank God!!!

Psalm 32. 6-7

For this cause everyone who is godly shall pray to You
In a time when You may be found;
Surely in a flood of great waters
They shall not come near him.
You are my hiding place;
You shall preserve me from trouble;
You shall surround me with songs of deliverance.

 

[Peter]

Hello vangard.
Thanks for your response. Liked your analogy about Lot.
vangard, I need to make amends. I am sorry to have mislead you by my testimonial thread:

Considering you mentioned being a veteran and having lost the use of your legs I'm touched by all what you've shared. You sure have suffered a lot. Surprising thing: it seemed to me that your greatest lost was your loved one when she left but I could be wrong (I say that because it was the first thing your posted).

My disability, in one leg, is from the abuse I received as an abused child. It has nothing to do with being in the military.
In regards to my beloved, she may not be here, but she is still a blossoming flower in my heart, and to me, I have not lost anything, only gained eternal gratitude. I am still in love with her.

vangard, thank you for sharing the lovely Psalm, and applicable to the victims of the bad weather.
I love the Psalms, I find many of them tune me into my love for Christ and God. Like a love song of praise.

Hoping to see some of your artworks in Talk Jesus. How about it?

 

[vangard]

Hello vangard.
Thanks for your response. Liked your analogy about Lot.
vangard, I need to make amends. I am sorry to have mislead you by my testimonial thread:

My disability, in one leg, is from the abuse I received as an abused child. It has nothing to do with being in the military.
In regards to my beloved, she may not be here, but she is still a blossoming flower in my heart, and to me, I have not lost anything, only gained eternal gratitude. I am still in love with her.

vangard, thank you for sharing the lovely Psalm, and applicable to the victims of the bad weather.
I love the Psalms, I find many of them tune me into my love for Christ and God. Like a love song of praise.

Hoping to see some of your artworks in Talk Jesus. How about it?

Wow it's by far worse being amputated that way than in the military! :0
Maybe that's why your avatar looks so much like The Scream...?

 

[Peter]

Wow it's by far worse being amputated that way than in the military! :0
Maybe that's why your avatar looks so much like The Scream...?

You make me laugh vangard (not disrespectfully).
A disability of a leg does not automatically mean amputation. It simply means that it lacks the ability to function as a normal leg would, and in this case, as equally as its counterpart.
Let me explain. As a boy of six years of age, still growing rapidly, the time it took for the body to repair my upper right leg and hip, it became stunted in comparison to the left leg, by about an inch. This also eventually caused a spinal curvature to compensate. People notice that I have a peculiar walk, but not enough to know that I have a stunted upper leg. However, this did not stop me from competing in athletics when young, or as a competitive cyclist as a 50-60 y.o.
God Bless.

 

[vangard]

:thumbsup: Cool!
Sorry for misunderstanding what you wrote, maybe it's because of your "amputated" tree.

 

[Peter]

Sorry for misunderstanding what you wrote, maybe it's because of your "amputated" tree.

No problems my sister in Christ.
Yes, I can understand the mix up, especially from that story about the role-play of an amputee in post # 10.
God Bless.