Artandicon's Blog

  • Reflections of God

    I carry my phone when I walk, so I always have a camera for the scenes of beauty which catch my eye. Since light is ephemeral and these moments are fleeting, catching them as they occur is important. When I come home, I often photoshop the image on my computer or in Instagram to get…

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  • Icon of Christ the Redeemer

    My latest icon of the face of Christ is based on the Napkin of Christ or The Image Not Made by Human Hands. The tradition tells us the Lord washed his face on a cloth and the image of his face transferred directly to it. King Abgar took the image bearing cloth to Edessa and…

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  • Now For Something Completely Different

    If we do the same thing over and over again, we’ll get the same results. Most of us will take the same road to our favorite restaurant, choose the same menu items, and call it a night at about the same hour. We are that predictable. A certain structure in our lives is necessary to…

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  • The Sea Shell

    I have hidden inside a sea shell but forgotten in which. Now daily I dive, filtering the sea through my fingers, to find myself. Sometimes I think a giant fish has swallowed me. Looking for it everywhere I want to make sure it will get me completely. The sea-bed attracts me, and I’m repelled by…

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  • The Art of Seeing

    Leonardo da Vinci said, “There are three classes of people: Those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” The task of the teacher is to help the student to see more clearly, not just in art, but also in life. When I was in seminary, I realized the…

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  • Perfection in Life and Art

    The life of one who pursues Art and Faith has many overlapping points. One of these is the search for perfection. The French artist Marcel Duchamp quit painting to play chess, saying he couldn’t create a greater work. However, he was still working on one last piece in secret in his studio. Artists are driven…

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  • Apples and Starving Artists

    Famous artists throughout the ages have chosen apples for their still life paintings. Apples are known for sitting still, they have a long shelf life, and they work for cheap. Moreover, when the painting is done, they make an excellent pie. We can’t do this with our human models, since this involves non ethical principles…

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  • Homage to Van Gogh: Sunflowers

    Flowers please us because of their colors and forms, but also because of their fleeting beauty. While the class was painting, I threw some colors on an old canvas. It is a sketch, since never got to the dark accents of the petals. The paint was wet, so I would have had mud, not two…

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  • PLANNING TO FAIL MISERABLY

    How to do it as an artist or any other professional. Or lollygagger in the workplace. I personally like #8—Why don’t you ever paint landscapes in normal colors? I get this question all the time. How do we know our greens and blues of today are “normal?” We live in creation after the fall, not…

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  • HOT OFF THE EASEL

      It’s summer, so what other temperature would it be? I’m in the midst of destroying some of my old works, since I’m tired of looking at them, I’ve grown beyond them, I’ve learned what I needed from the act of doing them, and the best ones from my past series got sold. These “unsold…

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