Radiant Light

« Back to Part 4 || Read Part 6 »

41. "Did you think, then, that you would do many more religious paintings?"

TEACHINGS FIRST, THEN IMAGES

When I had first received 'teachings' in prayer, I was so astonished, and so ignorant of their significance, that I supposed they would stop one day. I supposed that when the Lord had taught me whatever truths He had wanted to remind me about with such tremendous clarity He might be silent again. But to my surprise, they went on and on, in what became a normal way of prayer. So when the Lord began speaking to me in Holy Communion, from 1985 onwards, and gave me not only 'teachings' but also images, I was sure that this was part of some sort of plan He had; and I lived from day to day without trying to push ahead and guess His intentions.

The main thing is that He is trustworthy, and His plans are always good, even if they involve difficulties; so I remembered the images; and when I had plucked up courage to record the first few dozen in pen and ink, I think I was aware that this would be a long-term project. Indeed, I received further images every week or every day; and at the right time the Lord began to reveal his plans to me, and asked me to consent to each new stage of the Work.

A CONSTANT SUPPLY

When I had dozens of religious water-colours as well as sketches I felt almost as though I'd grown wings, in my artistic life, since there was never any lack of things to paint; and I could do so with minimal effort - for the Lord Himself had made the decisions about perspective, composition, chiaroscuro, and 'mood'; and I was deeply moved not just by the images He gave me but by the truths of which they are a reminder, and by some of the extraordinary pictorial analogies through which He has made some of those truths clearer.

Within a year or two, I had hundreds of ink sketches, and a few dozen large oils. It was then that I made a firm decision that called for more work, but which would have significant effects for the future. I had realised that, if my health was good enough, I might be painting religious works for years to come; and so I needed to be better organised, for the sake of people who would want reassurance about the whole subject. I wanted to show more clearly than ever exactly what the Lord had shown me in prayer.

42. "Is that why you did a lot of monochrome, blue and white water-colours of religious artwork at this time? Can you tell me a bit about these?"

A STRICTLY-ACCURATE RECORD

Yes; I started the still-continuing series of monochrome, blue and white water-colours. I believe this will end only when I am too weak to hold a brush.

Let us look at the whole process in detail. Picture the first large, religious oil painting I did, from an image given to me by God in prayer. I had sketched the image in ink. I had made a vivid full-colour oil of it: I am writing about "THIS IS MY BODY", which shows a priest at an altar, offering Mass, as Christ hangs on the Cross beside him, and the grass grows near the priest's feet. The original image was about a 'window into time'. The Lord had shown me, by that image, what the Catholic Church has always taught, that at our solemn, prayerful commemoration of Christ's death and Resurrection, called the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Christ's long-ago Sacrifice is miraculously re-presented before us. It is as though the veil of time parts; and we are in touch, in a mystical, 'sacramental' way, with what Christ has done, in His earthly life, to save us from the consequences of our sins. So I had received a powerful image, which I first recorded in a very simple manner. I had 'amplified' that image, by adding colour - which I had not seen in my vision. These visions are usually composed of distinct light and dark areas, of mixed glory and darkness, sometimes with outlines, and individual persons shown, or places; but there are no colours. But now I realised that unless I made a series of little paintings without full colour, to show exactly what the Lord had shown me in prayer, I risked misleading people about His gift.

MONOCHROME WATER-COLOURS

I knew that it was not wrong to adapt the images, and to add colour; but there must be no confusion between what He had chosen to give me, and the various ways in which I might utilise such images to more powerfully convey His message. It seemed to me that a small monochrome water-colour of every image, if numbered and captioned, would be an authentic record of my prayer-gifts. Then if anyone were to look at a coloured oil version, and wonder exactly what the Lord had originally shown me, I would be able to direct him to the water-colour collection, and know that I was being scrupulously accurate about conveying what I had seen in prayer.

43. "In the few years after you first painted the 'Mass' series, you painted many large oil paintings on a religious theme. Are they still linked with the blue water-colours; and why did you choose to do these particular pictures?"

A NEW SERIES OF OILS

The new series of large religious oil paintings which I produced each summer, in the mid-1990s, consisted of further 'amplifications' of what the Lord had already given me. By then, I had hundreds of monochrome images about all sorts of spiritual subjects, such as the Holy Trinity, Purgatory, Our Blessed Lady, sin and forgiveness, contemplative prayer, and much more. I remember being so bowled over by some of these gifts from the Lord that I decided to select the most exciting or important images, and do as many as I could in full colour, on large boards. My children were now adults, and I had more free time.

44. "How long did these oils take you to paint?"

A PHOTOGRAPHIC RECORD

Some simple images only took two or three hours to reproduce in oil. Others took a few days - with gaps for drying-time; and so I used to work on several at once, as I said earlier. I made a ring-back file, putting photocopies of one of my favourite monochrome religious pictures on the left side, and some possible colour notes on the right. And I simply worked my way through the file, for three or four long summers, in our dining room; each year I produced forty or fifty large works, which my elder son photographed. Then we circulated the photos freely to encourage people in their Faith; but I stopped painting oils each autumn, partly because the light was bad, but also because I was tired - and also because the Lord now asked me to write as well as paint.

Within a few more years I would have written and had printed, at His request, a spiritual autobiography, as well as several volumes of His 'teachings', and books such as 'How to pray', and 'the Mass through the Eyes of Christ.' Meanwhile, I did as many oils as I could, while I had the energy.

SATISFYING WORK

Now, I loved the process of painting, unlike the time when I was doing both oil and pencil portraits. Then, it was a dreadful experience, to inch towards a likeness whilst presenting an optimistic and cheerful outlook for the sitter. Now, I was thrilled by the subject matter; I gloried in the wonderful colours; and my heart 'sang' as I saw that I was at last producing a few of the sort of paintings I'd always yearned to paint without my actually knowing what they would consist of. They weren't all successful. But I learned a lot as I went along; and I had an inner conviction that all this work would prove to be worthwhile one day, for others, not just for my personal satisfaction.

45. "How many different layers of oil paint did you normally apply?"

SIMPLICITY AND PEACE

In describing my method of painting I feel I must explain that some aspects of the work were very easy to deal with. The oil paintings were fairly simple to complete because I was not composing something original. I already had an image - first, in prayer, and then on paper. I merely had to interpret it in oils. Other artists, I know, seem to wrestle with their subject matter, or change their minds half-way through about the perspective or the composition. So I was 'spared' all that sort of struggle. Another reason why things were so simple was that, with little art-school experience, I had never heard lectures on surface texture, or some of those other matters which preoccupy the reviewers in modern art magazines. I simply wanted to share an image, in colour, and felt I had no need to labour in a multitude of ways to make the surface look interesting or innovative.

I did what I deemed to be sufficiently effective, and moved on. This meant that I occasionally managed to paint 'alla prima' - with a single layer. More often, I applied two or three layers which were fairly thin and quick-drying. I was able to stack the pictures within a few weeks of completing them. None of them is varnished. I didn't think it necessary; and besides, I might have wanted to return to the picture to make a few alterations; and that's easy to do if there's no layer of varnish to get through.

46. "Did you always do a sketch before doing the oil painting?"

WORKING METHODS

I always had a sketch to work from, or rather, a photocopy of the monochrome water-colour which I had made soon after the initial pencil-sketch. There was rarely a time when I received an image in prayer, then went immediately to make a full-colour oil of it. It was important to make a sketch as soon as possible, so that I had a record, to go with the 'teaching' I'd been given in prayer at the same time. Then I'd want to do the usual monochrome water-colour, to give the most accurate-possible version for other people, so that they could know exactly what I had been shown. Besides, doing that water-colour version helped me to get the proportions right, and the perspective drawn as well as I could. So by the time I was ready to do a full-colour oil of that image, I only had to enlarge and use the image I already held in my hand.

47. "How did you transpose a small pencil sketch on a large canvas, before doing the oil painting?"

ENLARGING THE IMAGE

As I said, I made a collection of photocopies of the sketches I'd made of my favourite prayer-images, given by the Lord, and kept that file with me as I painted. I could transfer a simple image to a large board just by 'eye' and brush, without the need for special procedures. But if the image was complicated, I used to draw a grid on the photocopy, then use a brush full of semi-liquid oil paint and copy each square onto the large board, at about six or eight times the size of the original.

When I was more tired, and the usual artist's grid-system of enlarging images seemed unnecessarily tedious and time-consuming, I devised a system of my own. I used to take my photocopied image and enlarge it again on the photocopier, then enlarge the resultant copy - until it was the right size. Then I used tracing-down paper, to put the huge image on my board. I had no qualms about doing this, believing that it's the final painting that counts, not the process by which one arrives at it.

THE RIGHT INTENTION

I was always a 'purist' in water-colour, in the sense that if I sold a water-colour, the buyer could be certain that I had done a water-colour, and had not covered large parts of it with Chinese white. But how one arrived at enlargements seemed an irrelevance, to me, provided I used the image I had in my head, and presented it to others in oils with a new force and clarity. The use of pencil or carbon paper can make a mess of a pale oil painting, so I couldn't be heavy-handed about my process. But with enough guide-lines to reproduce the most complicated parts of an image - for example, some of my 'Holy Trinity' paintings - I could 'lose' a little grey in the oils without losing the freshness of the pigment.

48. "You seem to have painted light into many of these paintings. Why is this? Does the light represent something?"

THE LIGHT OF HEAVEN

There is a lot of light in these pictures. The Church and the Scriptures tell us that God lives in Heaven, in the unapproachable light of His holiness, and that Jesus Christ is the image of the unseen God, radiant with His glory; that is why I paint so much light. So the light represents holiness – whether in God, in Heaven, in the Saints, or in our souls. It is an amazing privilege to glimpse light in prayer, but I cannot pretend that it is a total surprise, nowadays. And in 'painting' prayer, or attempting to paint it, it has been impossible not to paint light.

49. "You also often paint fire in these paintings. Does this represent the same thing?"

THE FIRE OF HOLINESS

It is more and more clear that there's also a lot of fire in these images - and the Lord Himself has told me the reason. The first few hundred images were about hundreds of aspects of the spiritual life, and the soul's 'journey' to holiness. But more recently the Lord has been showing out, in images, more about His own nature. There is nothing new to be learned about Him, through my pictures. But He has put into pictures, to help His followers, glimpses of His holiness. It is like fire in its purity, its unchanging nature, and its power either to 'burn' or to purify those who enter it unprepared; and that is what I try to convey pictorially. It is also, as a spiritual flame, incomparable in its sweetness and brilliance, for those who have been purified, and who can one day 'bathe' in God's love, even on earth, in prayer - and later on in Heaven.

50. "Does the darkness in the paintings represent something?"

SHADOWS AND GLOOM

The darkness in the paintings usually represents a state of being earth-bound, or without God, or not fully purified, or even 'lost', and heading in the wrong direction. To be with God is to be enlightened, full of the fire of charity, and radiant with joy and love; whereas to be only half-hearted towards Him, and lukewarm, is to be in the shadows; and to be really alienated from God is to be cut off from His light, hidden in darkness, as if underground. It is to be cast by one's own choices into obscurity, sometimes 'seen' as the depths of the Abyss. These are all states which the Lord wants to convey to us through images, so that we will do all we can, with His help, to avoid sin and disaster, and to draw close to Him in His glory and bliss.

« Back to Part 4 || Read Part 6 »