Creation - the Miracle Paintings series

Last year I was commissioned by St. Paul's Church in Mobile to do thirty paintings for their children's sanctuary.  Every couple of months, I sit with the pastor there, and he tells me which scenes from the Bible I am to paint next.  Each canvas is about 3 x 4 feet big, and they aren't stretched so that they can hang scroll-like around the room.

This gig has been such a blessing.

I call the series the Miracle Paintings for several reasons, but mostly because I realized that the Bible, in its essence, is a collection of amazing, bizarre, and completely miraculous stories that happened a long, long time ago.  I'm a big believer and lover of miracles, having experienced quite a few of my own, and this seemed more tangible than "the Word of God" or anything of that nature.

I was never that great of a Sunday School student so some of the stories are brand new to me.  I have to say -- getting to know the Bible in this context has been enlightening and fun.  I mean, these are some great stories!  I, for one, believe in God (or Great Spirit or the Universe or whatever you want to call "It"), and I like God a lot, so I'm happy to be taking these stories to heart and then hopefully doing them some justice with paint and canvas.

In the spirit of the upcoming Christmas season, I've decided to post and chat about each painting that I have done.  The pastor's (awesome) vision was to do them chronologically according to the Bible, so...  I hope to have a nativity scene for Christmas Day, but I haven't been assigned that one yet.  Ha!

Here is Creation.

I think the story goes without saying, but if you want to read it again, here's a good link to the passage in Genesis.

I am in absolute love with color, so when God spoke, "Let there be light," not only did I imagine the brightest beautiful light, but all the colors that come with it.  And He created it all in seven days, and there are seven colors in the rainbow, so I rolled with that.  Sky, water, man, woman, earth, creatures, light.  It's the ultimate miracle -- that all of this exists at all.  Bask in that thought for a few seconds.  Big one, right?