From the locker: More Ballerinas.

This is the first video in a six-part series about a painting I did back in 2008. Stay tuned for parts two through six.

I put the video series together in 2009, wasn’t sure what I’d do with it, and forgot about it until recently. Hope you enjoy it:)

When I finished the film I deleted the high-res video files (who knew there’d be such a thing as internet HD?) because they were so large, but below you’ll find some ways to see the painting in full detail.

If you would like to share the images please link to this post. Please do not link to the images directly. Thank you.

A medium-res version of the full painting with options for prints:

Detail Crop 800 x 600:

1024 x 768:

1280 x 1024:

There’s a story in the Book of Mormon about a prophet, Abinadi, who stood up to a worldly king to testify of the gospel. It cost the prophet his life. This is a simple sketch/illustration I did for an upcoming publication from Daedalian Press.

Some older sketches.

The Golden Key by George MacDonald

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The book tells the account of a little boy and girl who find a golden key in fairy land and follow a trail to the door the key unlocks.

I did like one particular quote immensely. The dialogue is spoken to the little girl who at this time in the story is lost and has come far down in a cave and there she meets ‘The Old Man of the Earth.’

“Then the Old Man of the Earth stooped over the floor of the cave, raised a huge stone from it, and left it leaning. It disclosed a great hole that went plumb-down.
That is the way,” he said.
But there are no stairs.” [said the girl]
You must throw yourself in. There is no other way.”

I liked this quote because I think that’s how faith works. If you want to find out if God is there, you’re going to have to accept the fact that there is no staircase: There aren’t any scientific methods, any dialogues of reason, or any living persons that can give you a sure testimony of Him. In His wisdom, God seems to have designed it that way. He expects us to throw ourselves in, giving up all that we have to Him, even our free will, and trust that He will catch us at the other end.

All that being said, while “The Golden Key” really is full of beautiful imagery, it’s really not much as a story.

The environment and secondary characters (such as the Old Man of the Earth above) by themselves are wonderful, but as a whole there really is no plot, nor do the central characters have any interesting motives. The story ends before anything interesting happens.

If you’re looking to see some poetic imagery, then it’s worth a read. Otherwise, I would recommend one of MacDonald’s other books, such as “The Light Princess.”

View all my reviews

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Beautiful characters and some magical scenes. The only thing that I didn’t like about it was that the story ‘ends’ half-way through, but then continues on and on and on.

A brief account: The story is about an acerbic young girl named Mary who, upon the unexpected death of her parents, is sent to live with her miserable hunchback of an uncle in his prodigious estate. There she learns of a mysterious garden which was locked up long ago because of the death of her effervescent aunt, the hunchback’s wife. By a series of magical events the young girl finds the secret garden and, once inside, begins building a garden of her own. As she builds the garden she gradually changes from being a sour little child to a delightful one and helps heal a few other people’s hearts as well.

My favorite character was Dicken, the boy animal-charmer who plays on a Peter-Pan-esque flute, and it was only in hopes of seeing more scenes with him that I managed to make it through the story.

Among all the scenes, my favorite was the screaming argument that Mary starts in response to Collin’s temper tantrum. It was hilarious to watch the two spoiled children battle each other to see who has the better ‘mean-streak,’ and then watch how they become aware of themselves thereafter and grow to be friends.

I can only give it three stars because of the unending plethora of story-resolutions,  but I can recommend it. My advice would be to stop at or around the scene where Collin gets out of his wheel chair for his first walk, then skip to the last two pages.

Karen Savage––best audiobook narrator in the world for this genre––did a fantastic recording of it which can be downloaded for free at: http://bit.ly/qubGJt

View all my reviews

The Life of Thomas More by Peter Ackroyd

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Powerful, hopeful, and enlightening: the story of Sir Thomas More is one that everyone should hear.

Thomas More was a remarkable sixteenth-century lawyer who, out of his faith to the Catholic church, refused to swear an oath of spiritual obedience to King Henry the Eighth after the later took it upon himself to seize power from the Catholic Church and form The Church of England.

What was most interesting is that More brilliantly refused to give the reason ‘why’ he would not take the oath of spiritual obedience to the king. Everyone suspected that More was refusing out of his faith to the Catholic Church, but for More to say so specifically would make him vulnerable to accusation of treason under the king’s self-imposed law.

The action of silent refusal by this influential lawyer was so powerful that it was said to be a ‘Silence that bellowed up and down Europe.’

In the end, this silence cost him his life.

More was such a rare individual: he was perhaps the most talented intellectual of his day, yet he never let his abilities inflate his ego. The more he lived, the more he dedicated himself to understanding and teaching by example the passion of Christ.

Peter Ackroyd is the author in this great biography. He captures the most characteristic and interesting elements of More’s life while still maintaining an objective point of view.

Five stars for a terrifically executed biography of a fascinating life story.

View all my reviews

The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, 7 CDs [The Modern Scholar Series] by Peter Kreeft

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The audiobook lecture series was a terrific introduction to the world and philosophy of theological giant, Thomas Aquinas.

Thomas is renowned for having reconciled the intellectual reasoning of the ancient philosophers, such as Aristotle and Plato, with the doctrine of Jesus Christ. He was so prolific at expounding on theological principles that the church ended up assigning several scribes to him so that he could philosophize verbally and allow them to record it for him––thus speeding up the process. In all, he made some one-hundred thousand pages of philosophical thought.

Four stars for such a great introduction!

View all my reviews

From the locker.

The City of God by Augustine of Hippo

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was totally worth the time it took to read it. Augustine’s understanding of the gospel and remarkable rhetorical skills make for a compelling breakdown of the fall of Paganism, the rise of Christianity, and the importance of gaining entrance into into the City of God by surrendering ourselves to God’s will.

I would heavily recommend reading it on audio first, because there are long sections of the book that, while germane anciently, are now completely irrelevant. The said sections concerned the political and philosophical questions of the fifth century and were difficult to endure. Reading it on audio enabled me to mentally ‘tune out’ until the narrator reached a more interesting subject. The sections would, however, be interesting subject matter to a serious student of history.

Many of Augustine’s insights were wholly new to me, such as his understanding of numerical symbolism. I’ll outline one example briefly:

‘God worked 6 days, then rested the 7th.
6 here represents completion of this mortal life. This is shown in that the fundamental base numbers of 1, 2, and 3, can be either multiplied together to reach the number 6 (1 X 2 X 3 = 6), or added together to also make 6 (1 + 2 + 3 = 6). Therefore, 6 is a number that is complete in this life.
7, then, is the transcendence of the number 6. Upon the finishing of this life, we then enter into the rest of the Lord (symbolized by the Sabbath Day), thus transcending at the completion of this life.’

He also explains the numbers 8 and 12, but in order to find out, you’ll have to read the book:)

Double five stars for Augustine’s theological understanding wisdom, and rhetorical mastery.

View all my reviews