Spurgeon Piece Update

In a sermon given at Exeter Hall on January 8, 1860, Charles Spurgeon addresses stumbling stones that form on the sinners way to the city of refuge. This whole sermon was an encouragement to my heart with each stumbling block that Spurgeon addressed, The Lord addressed an issue in my heart.

I love spurgeons sermons because he is very visual. He uses imagery to eloquently illustrate his point. One "stumbling block" that stuck out to me was the third. He says,

"Oh saith some poor soul, "I do not know whether I believe or not sir. Sometimes I do believe; but oh it is such little faith I have, that I cannot think Christ can save me." I often feel that my shortcomings and sin are too great for The Lord. This is a lie. Spurgeon illuminates the lie by saying, "Remember it is not the strength of faith that saves thee, but the reality of thy faith. What is more, it is not even the reality of thy faith that saves thee, it is the object of thy faith. If thy faith be fixed on Christ, though it seems in itself a line no thicker than a spiders web, it will hold thy soul throughout time and eternity."

So I used my faith knot and webs to process through this portion of the sermon. I cant decide if it is done. I rendered the big knot in the middle to different levels of completion because I wanted it to look like different thicknesses of spider webs.

Spider Webs

 Sprugeon continues to illustrate his point by saying, "For remember, it is not the thickness of this cable of faith, it is the strength of the anchor which imparts strength to the cable, and so shall hold thy ship in the midst of the most fearful storm." I love that it is the strength of the anchor, not the cable that holds the ship in the storm. It is the strength of the Lord my anchor that holds my faith in tact through storms of doubt. I've painted an anchor that is supposed to be sinking into the ocean floor. I added cables to the chain that you would see on a suspension bridge. I added the lightening to illustrate the storm but I'm not sure how I feel about it. I think I need to knock it down a little bit, make it less drastic. Anyways, I have progressed from constructive thought to rambling so I will stop.

Anchor

Have a good night. 

Design, Design, Design!

So I do graphic design work on the side. Sometimes for money, sometimes because I like you. I have done a whole slew of things this past year from softball jersey designs, to save the dates to wedding invitations to stuff for my own personal interest.

Graphic design is great because it keeps those creative juices flowing, helps bring in some extra cash and allows me to use my creativity to serve those around me in a really practical way.

I am including some samples to show you what I've been up to...

First up my brother-in-law Peter is marrying the lovely Kristin England. Seriously these two are really, really, really, ridiculously good looking.

Alexandra Jordan Photography out of Tulsa took some stunning photos of these two and they then asked me to design a save the date magnet for them. How could you not when you get to look at these two pretty faces...?

Lovely.

I love the balloons such a fun touch!

In the spirit of weddings I designed a few invitations because wedding are fun, I can and I've been asked to design one for some friends who are getting married at the end of the summer. Couldnt think of good fake names so I went with some old favorites.

Don't judge.

Next we have the cover of my schools 16 page graduation program (yes you read that right.) Part of my role at my school was to help with the graphic design of various things. The school underwent a rebranding before I arrived and has some pretty slick new crests and a unified color scheme. So I was asked to update the graduation program with the new logo. (This was seriously fun to design because I had a lot of the senior girls in my art class this year and was able to make their graduation program really classy.)

Classy.

After that we have a softball jersey redesign. One of our friends from our old home group at Providence plays for the churches softball team and hired me to help him out with some of the design. I really enjoyed recreating this font Neutra Inline. Neutra Display Titling is quickly becoming a new favorite.

Finally we have some designs that I have created for myself. Part of the way I take notes in church is through illustrating the sermon. It helps me understand and process what my pastor is saying as he is preaching. May is missions month at IDC and to kick us off, David Sitton founder of To Every Tribe ministry shared a bit of his story and challenged our church with Matthew 9:35-38 which says...

"Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

He explained to us that it is a privilege to share the gospel. Saying that if we are called to Christ then we are called to His mission which is, spreading His name and His gospel. The word used in for the phrase "send out" in vs. 38 is ekballo. Ekballo means to forcibly expel. So when we are asking for the Lord of the Harvest to send laborers out it is strong and forceful sending out. The hubs and I discussed the idea of "go" and where are we called to "go" right now. We came to the conclusion that the way we can "go" right now is by continuing to pray and support our friend Matt Maloney who is serving in Peru with Pioneers. We can also pray for those in the IDC church body who might be feeling called to go plant a church and/or go overseas. As I thought about "go" more on my own I realized that I can "go" to my students it is very easy for me to get to school and focus on the lesson I am to teach or the project we need to finish. Rarely do I pause to think of my school as a mission field. So I made this graphic for my desktop to challenge myself to go and engage with my students.

In addition to challenging us to go. Sitton also challenged us to think about the worldview of scripture. Explaining that the worldview of scripture is one of warfare. It makes sense if you think about scripture and the way believers are challenged to put on the armor of God to face the enemy. Not that we are to go out and bludgeon others with our bibles but more that we are called to go and die. If we are modeling our ministry after Christ's he came into the world and died for you and me. His death led to victory. I do not need to fear death nor the praise of man because the battle has been won. He said, "We are not on a Christian cruise ship we are on a Christian battleship." He lost me for a second because I began visualizing a battleship running over a cruise ship at sea. I immediately began sketching and started to make the vector battleship you see below. I'm pretty proud of this bad boy it took a lot of time and detail to render it with basic shapes and five different shades of blue and gray. I have included my source photo. 

Source photo.

Vector

I'm not done. My next step is to create the cruise ship that the battleship is running over but I thought it was finished enough to post on the blog. 

 

Austin Trip, Art Show and Group Projects.

Update on life...

1) Austin was great. I didn't have to send any kids home. By the end of the trip the kids started saying...

"I don't like that face your making."
"What face?" I asked.
"Your scary face."

Apparently up until this point I had never been truly scary. All I needed to be truly scary was a lack of sleep and spending more than an hour and a half with them, go figure. I enjoyed the effects of the scary face their eyes would get a little big and they would quickly say, "Yes ma'am."

We surprisingly had the most fun at the cemetery. It was due entirely to our tour guide Will. Will was hilarious and he knew the most gruesome stories which the kids ate up. For example, he told us about Josiah Wilbarger.

"In August 1833, Wilbarger was a member of a surveying party of four that was attacked by Comanche Native Americans about four miles east of the site of present Austin, Texas. Two of the men were killed and scalped by the Native Americans. The other two managed to flee. Wilbarger was scalped and the Indian left him for dead, but he was still living when he was found the next day by Reuben Hornsby and taken to the Hornsby home for treatment. Wilbarger managed to survive by crawling into a nearby stream to wash his wounds. According to legend, Wilbarger was thought to have been killed, but later that night Hornsby's wife saw Wilbarger in a dream sitting under a tree. She gave her husband a description of the tree and he was found there the next day. Wilbarger never completely recovered from his wound although he lived for 11 more years. He died at his home near Bastrop in 1845 after an accident in which he struck his head on a low support beam inside of his cotton gin. His exposed skull eventually became diseased, causing him to die."

Wilbarger post scalping.

Students reacting to Wilbarger's story.

2.) Art Show was AWESOME! 

I was so proud of my kiddos and enjoyed the time to talk to parents about what their students have been doing in class. It was also a really encouraging time. I received great feed back from parents about the program and was given more ideas for next year. I've posted some photos below. 

Final version of the Rauschenberg Project. Completed by an 11th grader.

Some elementary students discussing the Rapunzel project inspired by John Latham.

Lower School Gallery.

Second graders vase that she made on her own.

Second grader with his macaroni stegosaurus.

Tigers Curse, Latham project.

Close up (sorry for how dark the photos are...)

Food! So proud of myself for ordering "just enough."

9th grader with her paintings.

11th grader with her Big Ben print (which took second in the printmaking category at district.)

Some of my seniors looking at the print gallery.

3.) Group Projects. 

We are at the point in art where we have 2 weeks left in school and not enough time to start and finish a project. Enter group projects. There is this magical room at my school called the junk room. You can find anything at the junk room. Desks, trash cans, overhead projectors, cabinets etc. So I took two old cork boards and painted them white. 

The 8th graders made a grid with 8 squares. They then drew lines all over the board and were assigned a color. They painted the shapes inside in different shades of their assigned color. 
 

Students drawings lines (and making silly faces.)

Lines.

Painting in their assigned colors.

Students outlining their shapes.

Finished product.

 My freshmen were given a bit more freedom. I let them pick an image and figure out how they wanted to break it up. Many ideas were discussed, ranging from an octopus, to a stairway to heaven and a galaxy. I deemed the octopus to creepy for prospective parents checking out the school, stairway to heave idea was ruined by Led Zepplin, leaving the galaxy. They decided to break it up by painting different sections of the color wheel letting all of the colors fade into each other.

Sketching out the galaxy and gridding out the colors.

In progress.

 

Finished product.

I am super pleased with how both of these turned out. They will be hung in the hallway hopefully by the end of the week. :)

I am truly blessed to be at my school and work with these kids.