a warning & reminder

"You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: ruby, topaz and emerald, chrysolite, onyx and jasper, sapphire, turquiose and beryl. Your setting and mounting were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared. You were annointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created fill wickedness was found in you. Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, I expelled you, O guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones. Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth; I made you a spectacle of you before kings." Ezekiel 28: 14-16

This is the scene, set in Eden and heaven, that describes Satan being thrown out of heaven, giving us some background and understanding for Jared Konopitski's piece, "The Devil's Trickery", inspired by 2 Corinthians 11:14, which says, "Even Satan can disguise himself as an 'angel of light.'"

While this piece isn't strictly a vision of heaven, it certainly peeks into the workings of heaven and the invisible spiritual realm. Jared describes this colored pencil work as "more of warning and a reminder. Sometimes what seems like heaven may just be a devilish trick." Jared also reminds us to make sure things agree with scripture before taking it as heaven sent. While the message could be sent harshly, Jared's style softens the blow and makes this an approachable subject - even allowing us to laugh a little - yet maintains a somewhat sinister edge in his depiction of Satan.

Wait until you see what he has up his sleeve next - I mean Jared, not Satan -

more trees

Today we go back to trees - another tree of life in bead embroidery by Sheila Stockton - and watching how a beaded tree grows from the seeds of inspiration to the full growth of a finished product. The first part of inspiration comes from scripture, in this case, Sheila says, "since olive trees are such long living trees:"

They’ll build houses
and move in.
They’ll plant fields
and eat what they grow.
No more building a house
that some outsider takes over,
No more planting fields
that some enemy confiscates,
For my people will be as long-lived as trees,
my chosen ones will have satisfaction in their work.
Isaiah 65:16-17* (The Message)

Here you can see the seed growing into a colored pencil sketch in Sheila's journal and below it in the body of text is another scriptural reference to the tree of life in Revelation 22:2, "On each side of the river grew the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit with a fresh crop each month." Some translations specify that each fruit is a different kind of fruit, and this reference to twelve kinds of fruit is part of what has inspired Sheila to render the tree of life as different fruit bearing trees. We'll wait to see if she gets to twelve...







At this stage, you can see the pencil sketch on the cloth (including some color reference) and the embroidery in progress. We happened to catch it at a point where she had just finished a length of thread and had tied it off in the back, otherwise, you might see the very fine needle that she works with.

And finally the finished piece - I think this whole process took her about week, not counting the conceptual process and the many hours of searching for just the right beads for the work.


*On a scriptural note, the verse she chose to accompany this piece, is from a section of Isaiah specifically referring to the New Earth, when Jesus will be back on earth with his people, bringing Heaven down and restoring God's relationship to humankind.

contrasting heaven & earth

Today we've got another piece from Jared Konopitski, whose visions are unlike any others. This image is called "Out of Tears" and is in Jared's signature colored pencil style, digitally enlarged to poster size creations.

His inspiration for this image comes from Luke 6:21, where Jesus said those on earth will laugh in heaven, as well as from Mathew 18:3, where He said, "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

Jared describes the piece as illustrating "a child being birthed into heaven out of a world of tears." He made the contrast of laughing in heaven to crying (tears) on earth; much like some passages of scripture do (though I can't at the moment remember where.) We all can acknowledge that life on earth in the here and now can be a very painful experience and this work is a reminder that all of that pain will no longer exist when we live in the presence of God. Praise Him for that!

trees of life

Many of you are aware of my own personal facination with trees, and the tree of life has to be one of the most facinating concepts for me personally, but it has also been the subject of many artists and iconographers quite literally over the millenia.

In our western society, the tree of life is an apple tree; I've never researched why that happens to be (maybe I should) but I have researched some of the Hebrew tradtitions and found that some hold the tree of life as a date palm, an olive tree, a fig tree, or even a grape vine. For an artist deciding to depict this most heavenly of trees, the options are wide open.

One artist embarking on this journey is Sheila Stockton (many of you also know her as my mother) who is using bead embroidery as her media of choice for this journey.

This is her second finished work, titled "Tree of Life #2: Date Palm." Her scriptural reference for this piece is "Blessed are those who wash their robes. They will be permitted to enter through the gates of the city and eat the fruit from the tree of life." (Revelation 22:14 NLT) You can see the river of life in this image, and the date palm tree of life growing along both sides of the river.

The detail work in these tiny artistic jewels is pretty impressive. (You can click on the image itself to get a closer view of those details.) We'll share a little more of the process that goes into those details in another post very soon...

And just so you know how these things work, if you'd like to see more artwork that relates to the work in this posting, just click on one of the labels at the bottom of the post and see what happens!

time for refreshments!

And finally, the notes for my last New Jerusalm Palms image, "Times of Refreshment." This inspiration for this piece comes from Acts 3:20-21. "Then times of refreshment will come from the presence of the Lord, and he will again send you Jesus, your appointed Messiah. For he must remain in heaven until the time for the final restoration of all things, as God promised long ago through his holy prophets."



Here's the whole page with overlays in my journal - you can see the scriptural reference noted to the right -



Here's the map overlay by itself, again a map of ancient Jerusalem. I really like the idea of the old Jerusalm connecting with the New Jerusalem, illustrating God's timelessness in his city.



And finally the palm image by itself. Of course, I ended up painting them somewhat differently, but that just shows that the creative process can take twists & turns...

heaven in the studio

This is actually my entry for today on my personal art blog, which you can find at www.judithmonroe.com/journal.html, but it's about my work for this heaven project, so I figured I'd just post it here, too:

More studio work today - and last night -



Wet watercolors on the New Jerusalem Palms mini series (and here you thought that was only on tv.)



This morning, I was working on two things at once - actually alternately, but saying at once is more impressive - in the foreground you can see the new Polaroid transfer wall art plaques I'm working on for a couple venues and back on my drawing table I'm doing the pencil work on the New Jerusalem Palms quartet.

By noon I've already finished the New Jerualem Palms, so I'll share...

My Father's House 1/5

Heavenly Homeland 1/5

City of God 1/5

Times of Refreshment 1/5

dad's house

I spent a couple hours in the darkroom today, printing what I'm now calling my New Jerusalem Palms series. I've shared my journal pages of two of the four pieces already, so I'll share another today, then the uncolored prints (which are drying right now) and finally the finished pieces.


This is the page complete with overlay and miscellaneous notes. The Scripture I'm basing this image on is John 14:1-3, "Don't let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father's home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am."


My first thought coming from this verse was of a long driveway lined with palms leading to a grand house, like can be found here in the Central Valley. Actually finding what I had in my head proved to be a challenge, and in looking for palms for other images in this series, I found my rows of palms and then thought I could overlay a small image of a home, or an architectural sketch but then realized I already had found an image of a mosaic map of ancient Jerusalem which portrayed buildings, bringing to my mind the idea of a home with many rooms, almost like a city...


So I created an overlay based on the mosaic to use with the palm trees and also create another visual reference to Jerusalem. Of course, the images never work out quite the same in the darkroom as they do in my journal. In this case, the image of the palms was too busy when the overlay was completely over it, but I like the effect on the wide black border around the image, so I cut a hole in the overlay to allow the palms to come through more readable.

It's really exciting for me to have all the pieces come together after messing around with them. This whole conceptual process is new to me, but I'm finding it rewarding in a whole new way.

jottings by jared

Jared Konopitski & I got to catch up on stuff on Sunday at which time I mentioned to him that I didn't have a lot of work from him for this blog, even though I KNEW he had been very creative. So also being a very responsible young man, Jared has sent me a couple more images to post. Both pieces are done in Jared's typical colored pencil cartoon-illustrative style which so many of us thoroughly enjoy.

This first image was inspired by Isaiah 9:5 "In that day of peace, battle gear will no longer be issued. Never again will uniforms be bloodstained by war. All such equipment will be burned."

In Jared's words, "The soldier is burning his uniform for he no longer has a need for it. In the same effect the tank in the back is burning to the ground and the sky is glowing from the fire as all the ingredients of war are burned in this time peace."

This second piece comes from Revelation 20:11. "And I saw a great white throne, and I saw the one who was sitting on it. The earth and sky fled from his presence, but they found no place to hide."

Jared says "In this image I placed a white throne right in the middle of a satellite-esque photo of the earth. The image of earth is swirling and twisting to hide from the throne but it has no where to go, limited to its own borders."

Jared is certainly not limiting himself as he continues with his artistic visions of heaven. I'm eager to see what else he has in store for us.

heavenly homeland

Today I'll take you back to my personal journal work for this show, and the palm theme I've presented before. First, here is the layered image, as seen in my journal:


You can faintly see the map & then the image of palm trees underneath it. Also the last part of the scriptural reference, Hebrews 11: 13-16. "All these people died still believing what God has promised them. They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it. They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on earth. Obviously people who say such things are looking forward to a country they can call their own. If they had longed for the country they came from, they could have gone back. But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them."

The people referred to in this passage were many of the faithful from the Old Testament, including Noah, Abraham, and then Moses, Rahab, David and many others. The map overlay I used for this came from a map of Jerusalem in 1947.


I did this to tie together the homeland of the ancient Jews, the modern land and then the future homeland referred to in the scripture. There are many references in the Old Testament to the land of Israel being God's permanent home. Leviticus 26:11 & 12 says, "I will live among you, and I will not despise you. I will walk among you; I will be your God, and you will be my people." And in Zechariah 2:10, "The Lord says, 'Shout and rejoice, O beautiful Jerusalem, for I am coming to live among you.'" The concept is a recurring theme among many of the minor prophets.

Finally, I place this all over one of my images of palm trees.


Palm trees can be a symbol for Israel itself, for the tree of life, and they also decorate the true temple, as I've noted before - check out Ezekiel 40 & 41 for yourself.

carry me home!

Another one of the pieces in the cafe' preview show that hadn't before made it to this blog is one of Ross Conklin's newest acrylic paintings, “Sweet Chariot (Free Pickup and Delivery.)"

Ross says "This is taken from the grand old Negro spiritual, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, comin’ for to carry me home." He sites 2 Kings 2:11 as a Biblical reference:

“As they (Elisha and Elijah) were crossing the Jordan River, Elijah said, ‘tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?’

‘Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit’, Elisha replied.

‘You have asked a difficult thing,’ Elijah said, ‘yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours, otherwise not.’

As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind... and Elisha saw him no more.”

You can clearly see how Ross has illustrated this passage of 2 Kings, as well as Psalms 68: 16-17, “Why gaze in envy, oh rugged mountains, at the mountain where God chooses to reign, where the Lord himself will dwell forever? The chariots of God are tens of thousands and thousands of thousands.” He is so overwhelmed by this thought that he says, "You do the math!"

Ross also refers to praises in Psalms that helped inspire this piece. Including Psalms 104, which says, “Oh Lord my God, you are very great; you are clothed with splendor and majesty. He wraps himself in light as with a garment. He stretches out the heavens like a tent and lays the beams of his upper chambers on the waters. He makes the clouds his chariots and rides on the wings of the wind. He makes winds his messengers, flames of fire his servants.” And finally, Psalms 102: 20-22 , “Praise the Lord, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word. Praise the Lord all his works everywhere in his dominion. Praise the Lord, oh my soul.”

Praise the Lord, indeed.