Encaustic Project: Update

The latest news on my encaustic project: a few more paintings, and a few more experiments. I tried using a wood-burning tool to blend and melt the wax straight on the panel…will report back on just how safe this is :p. Check out the photo gallery for pictures, and let me know what you think!

This seashell painting was made with a combination of wax melted together with heat gun, and hot wax dotted on with brush.

Here, I used a heat gun to create the background, a razor to etch out the fine lines, and a wood-burning tool to blend the water slightly.

Favorite Quotes: Fiddler on the Roof

One of my favorite musicals, Fiddler on the Roof is full of little bits of simple wisdom. We watched the movie last night, and I listed a few of my favorite lines…just for fun ~

 

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“Tevye: [to God] As the Good Book says, ev…
[chuckles]
Tevye: Why should I tell You what the Good Book says?”

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“Mordcha: May the authorities be like onions with their heads in the ground!”

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Villager: An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.
Tevye: Very good. That way the whole world will be blind and toothless.

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“Yente: People! I tell you, Tzeitel, if God lived on earth, people would break his windows!”

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“Tevye: As the good book says, if you spit in the air, it lands in your face.”

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“Perchik: Money is the world’s curse.
Tevye: May the Lord smite me with it. And may I never recover.”

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“Tevye: As the good book says, when a poor man eats a chicken, one of them is sick.
Mendel: Where does the book say that?
Tevye: Well, it doesn’t say that exactly, but somewhere there is something about a chicken.”

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[about Yente, the matchmaker]
“Tzeitel: But Mama, the men she finds. The last one was so old and he was bald. He had no hair.
Golde: A poor girl without a dowry can’t be so particular. You want hair, marry a monkey.”

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“Tevye: As Abraham said, “I am a stranger in a strange land… ”
Mendel: Moses said that.
Tevye: Ah. Well, as King David said, “I am slow of speech, and slow of tongue.”
Mendel: That was also Moses.
Tevye: For a man who was slow of tongue, he talked a lot.”

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“Fyedka: [introducing himself to Chava] I’m a pleasant fellow, charming, honest, ambitious, quite bright, and very modest.”

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“[Hodel is leaving on a train for Siberia]
Hodel: Papa, God alone knows when we shall see each other again.
Tevye: Then we will leave it in His hands.”

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Tevye: [to Lazar Wolf] I always wanted a son, but I wanted one a little younger than myself.

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Avram: (gestures at Perchik and Mordcha) He’s right, and he’s right? They can’t both be right.                                                                                                       Tevye: You know… you are also right.

Art and the Christian Worldview

I truly believe I have never read anything with more insight about the arts than this essay from Summit Ministries.  The Creative Arts — by Leland Ryken.

Encaustic Project: More Paintings

Visit the Encaustic Gallery — new paintings to see!

Encaustic Project: More Photos!

Please check out the new work in my encaustic paintings gallery! And please comment; I would love to here what you think~~~~

Just cuz…

Anybody see the resemblance?

Encaustic Project: Updated Page

     I finally got around to an update on the encaustic project page. Take a look! 

More pictures and paintings soon to come~~~

This Week’s Tiny Painting

Mini Painting #5 – Storm on the Superstitions, oil on canvas, 8×10

Just cuz….

     No time, gotta go, but I really oughta post something…

     Here’s a goofy picture from last summer :)

Fooled by a Jehovah’s Witness

So, I was working in the studio last Saturday when a very sweet, little, old lady came knocking at the glass doors. I thought maybe she was curious about the church next door (that happens a lot). She was for a second; and for another second she seemed interested in my artwork. But when the third second came around, she revealed that she had been “teaching the Bible” for fifty years and had been all around the community that day “teaching” various people. I informed her that I was a Christian, studied the Bible, and attended the church next door. The enormous, sweet smile that had never left her face grew wider, “Oh, that’s nice…” (she reminded me of Granny in Sylvester and Tweety) “Now tell me, do you think Armageddon is near?” She didn’t really wait for an answer, and I won’t go into the details of the ensuing conversation.  Suffice it to say that she “taught” in a sort of garbled fashion about resurrection, sin and salvation, God in general, so on and so forth.

She also pulled out her Bible and read to me, very slowly, passages and even whole chapters from a dozen different parts of it. I perceived that I was pinned in a corner (I really was), and that I really needed to get back to work. She was confusing to listen to, but I tried to comprehend her meaning. The passages she was reading seemed strange; the language was odd. Then it hit me, this was not the Bible–shame on me for being duped all this time–this was a cult’s translation, that of Jehovah’s Witness. I finally began to follow her round-about way of speaking and to understand the elements of her message. It was then that I felt enormously disappointed and sorry for her. She was “proclaiming the name” of God, specifically Jehovah, because that was her means of salvation. It was one of the “works” she had to do to deserve heaven.

What she had been telling me was essentially this: that there is no Hell, only heaven and non-existence; that Jesus was only a sinless man, who died (she wouldn’t be clear as to why His death was necessary) and was resurrected in spirit only; that believers in Him must “witness His name” (she said this over and over), to be saved. In contrast, as a Christian I believe that sin is a condition in all of us that we cannot resolve by doing any amount good works; that Jesus, God incarnate, suffered the death that sin deserves and was resurrected bodily; that true repentant believers in Him are freed from sin, resulting in a life that naturally “proclaims His name.”

There’s a lot more to it than that, of course. But that’s the story, and these are sort of my counterpoints to her points. Nothing like a missionary of a distorted Christianity to make you re-examine the original Christianity.

Later, I thought it worthwhile to look over their official website. There’s an online version of their translation of the Bible; I compared it with the regular NIV Bible at www.bible.com.