The Meaning
“From The Wilderness” illustrates a prophecy that was spoken to me while I was in a counceling lay-ministry. I translated it into my soul being lost in the wilderness of my past into this present time. To me, I was coming from many sick and twisted relationships that I had experienced and then slowly started seeing how God relates to me in a new and different way.
When working on this illustration, I began to realize that He is not the religious, judgmental, mean, or non-tolerant task master people portray Him as. But rather, He is a kinder, more understanding being, who still wants me to learn about who He really is and how He relates to me from moment to moment.
Out of the Darkness
You see me at the bottom, coming out of a dark forest with a wolf on the right of me and an owl on the left of me. The wolf symbolizes the modern-day Pharisees and their followers who tried to wound me and distract me from knowing who God and the Son really are. Some counseling ministries, like the one I was in at this time, seem to be effective for me for a while, but I would notice that, when larger ministries or churches take them over, they were led to dead rituals with no real relationships or friendships. They were no longer spiritual. Eventually, I would have to move on to find Him in new places.
Cutting the Ties
He always wants to set me free from my past (as protrayed by the rope being cut by an angel).
A Table Set Before Me
Up above you can see a dove (His Spirit) with Father God’s hands coming out of the clouds. His hands are presenting a table He has set for me in the presence of my enemies (inspired by Psalm 23:5).
The Process
This was a difficult piece for me to do because I was still stuck painting down in the basement of my rental house which had very little light, like I was when I painted “Dropping the Dead.”
Wiping the Clouds
Most everything on this piece was sketched out with a mechanical pencil first, except for the tree branches and the clouds around God’s Hands. This was one of the times when I continued to learn how to do the “wiping” technique with brushes, rags, and mineral spirits. The clouds are applied with blue paint in a circular motion with a brush and then wiped off with a rag and brush diped in mineral spirits, down to the original color of the primer on the canvas.