KEY TO MY ART POSTS

The title of my site is “Bible Passages Explained and Illustrated.” It started out years ago as a place to highlight some of my original art with short descriptions tying the picture into the appropriate Bible passage. When I finished with most of those, I then gravitated toward longer posts concentrating on the “Explained” aspect instead. More recently, I have begun recycling some of those earlier pictures in my posts but incorporating more detailed explanations of the text. This short blog is mainly for the benefit of those who may have come across this site recently by accident looking for examples of “Christian art,” many of which are only found on my earlier posts from years ago. But first a few words of explanation concerning my own involvement in artistic endeavors.

In my formative years growing up – a long time ago in a place far, far away – I was equally fascinated with science and art (literary, visual, and musical). In high school I envied one of my colleagues whose parents were rich enough to support his artistic bent. It was even said that he had two art agents, one on the East Coast and one on the West, while still a teenager. I am happy to report that he made it his life's career and was quite successful in it. By contrast, I took the scientific route while keeping my other interests as hobbies.

Part of the reason for my career choice had to do with economics and part from the fact that I recognized my limitations in any other direction. Thus, although I had lots of ideas for new pictures, I must admit that I had no technical training or skills to allow me to carry out my visions. However, I was able to copy existing paintings and drawings and even transfer them to different media successfully. My artistic models at the time included Joseph Cornell, Paul Klee, and surrealists such as Max Ernst. I am amused by the fact that one of the most frequent internet hits for Klee's famous “Sinbad” pen-and-ink and watercolor painting is actually of the copy (below) I produced years ago by adapting it to an oil on sand on board painting. I can detect it by the minor differences I inadvertently made from the original. 

 

 It was only much later that I chanced on collage as a medium where I could perhaps compensate for my lack of drawing and painting skills. And the results of juxtaposing various black-and-white and color illustrations from books and magazines into the semblance of a new reality were pleasingly surrealistic. I found out later that Max Ernst had done the same thing years earlier.

 

                                                         Mostly Monochromatic (2003)

My retirement years have given me the necessary time for producing a couple of hundred “artistic” creations, most of which are found on this site. And since my subject of choice for these pieces was the Bible, I have provided several posts containing keys on how to access these by the Scripture passage illustrated. So the first step to locating these is to use one of the two search function boxes on the home page to find these blogs under the following names:

        Illustrating the Pentateuch

        Illustrating the History Books in the Bible

        Illustrating the Poetry and Prophets

        Illustrating the Gospels

        Illustrating the Book of Acts

        Illustrating Paul's Letters

        Illustrating the General Epistles

        Illustrating the Book of Revelation

In each case, the work will be referenced by title and additional keywords to use in searching. Don't be surprised if the first one or two posts pulled up isn't the one you wanted.