Art

I just finished up my most recent art class, so I have several new drawings (and a painting!) to show. This class helped me learn the value of drawing from life, rather than from pictures. Drawing from life gave my finished images much more depth and helped me to more clearly see value differences and proportions. My goal as an artist at the moment is to develop the technical skills necessary to make realistic art so that I can later move on to make art that has meaning. I think this class that I took has helped me tremendously in this effort.

For copyright purposes, I'm just going to show drawings that have a distinct signature on them, but there are many more that I have not posted.

Without further ado, here are my latest additions!

Freesia. Graphite. Drawn from life.

It Takes Two. Graphite. Drawn from life.

Figurine of a Chinese Woman. Graphite. Drawn from life.

Essay: How Should We Become Adults?

This was my second oral report for my English final. Enjoy!

~ ~ ~

Adulthood has lost most of its original meaning with the onslaught of the postmodern age. No longer do the majority of teenagers long for adulthood so they can work and earn their own living in the world. Now, most teenagers dream of adulthood for the sake of gratifying their pleasures legally. Because the meaning of adulthood has changed in such a drastic way, it no longer holds as much weight as it once did. There is no journey to maturity and responsibility, but rather a sudden leap from one age to another that results in new privileges. George MacDonald wrote the story of a young man on his journey to the old sense of adulthood in his fairy tale, Phantastes. This story can teach young men and women of the postmodern age the importance of growing in wisdom to reach maturity and the value of acting with responsibility.

The main character of Phantastes, Anodos, first begins his journey to adulthood by leaving his world for Fairy Land. Before entering this enchanted land, Anodos is struck in his normal life with a deep longing for Fairy Land, which shows that he is made for another world. After a short time in Fairy Land he encounters his first and greatest enemy, the Ash tree, which symbolizes brute power and mastery. It nearly overcomes him, but with the guidance of various mature inhabitants of Fairy Land along the way, he is protected from harm. Anodos also discovers that the food he eats in Fairy Land satisfies his hunger and heightens his senses, bringing him into a more complete relationship with his surroundings. This symbolizes the act of communion. As he continues on his journey, Anodos falls in love with a white maiden who continually escapes him. Towards the end of his journey, Anodos reaches maturity when he discovers that his quest should never have been to seek to be loved, but to love another.

In order to begin a journey to adulthood such as what Anodos underwent, a young adult must start it with a mind ready to learn. Anodos learned much in Fairy Land because he very quickly learned one of his most important lessons: that of listening to those wiser than himself. Young adults will always need guidance from mature adults because they will undoubtedly make as many mistakes as Anodos did. To some degree young adults still need autonomy, since they need to learn how to think for themselves. By allowing them to make mistakes, they will learn never to make them again. Young adults also need a path to go down, like Anodos’ quest to find his white maiden. Aimlessly wandering will get them nowhere, but a quest will give them something to desire, a journey to learn from, and a prize to help them value their struggles. Above all, young adults need God on their journey, without whom they would never truly reach their goals.

While the postmodern age has brought horrific changes to the state of adulthood, and a decrease in the number of truly mature adults, it is not without hope. With stories like Phantastes still in existence, teenagers can be taught what it means to be an adult. They can learn that adulthood is not a set of privileges given as rights at a certain age, but is rather a state of mind achieved through hard work and difficult lessons. On top of this, no age is without hope since God is always in control. With God in control, no matter how immature teenagers may choose to stay, we can rest with the knowledge that God has a purpose for good in such times.

Essay: The One True Hero

This was one of my oral reports for my English final this year, in essay form.

~ ~ ~

One of the classic components of stories all throughout literature is the existence of a hero. These heroes have come in many different forms, from Hercules to Bilbo Baggins. As different in character and physique as these heroes may be, they share many common characteristics. Edith Hamilton recorded the stories of a wide range of characters with these qualifications in her book, Mythology. One hero who is not often referred to as such is Jesus Christ. While at first his servant’s story may seem completely contradictory to the wild adventures of Hercules and Bilbo Baggins, his story has much in common with theirs. He did not conquer his enemies through brute force like Hercules did, nor did he have a magic ring to make him invisible as Bilbo did. Instead, Jesus conquered the enemies that no hero before or after him can: sin and death.

To understand why such different personalities can have the same title, one must understand the essence of what it means to be a hero. One of the most essential aspects to a character being the hero of the story is that such a character must be given a quest. This can be directly called a quest, or it can be something the character chooses to do himself to right a wrong. The hero could be sent to retrieve a stolen object, rescue a damsel in distress, or perform any other noble act. On the road of his quest, the hero usually undergoes some sort of change, especially if the hero is not likable at the beginning of the story. At the end of this road, the hero is always victorious. Such heroes are not necessarily confined to literature—they can also exist in real life, but are easier to identify in literature.

In general, heroes in literature and in real life are equally important, though in different ways. Some real life heroes, such as firemen, are renowned for rescuing people in distress, just as many heroes in literature do. These heroes affect our daily lives in a more direct way than literary ones do, and often in a physical way. We have much to learn from the fictional lives of literary heroes, particularly as children. When children are introduced to and immersed in fairy tales, they are taught to rejoice with the hero when he is victorious over the villain of the story. Because these stories are entertaining and as a result can stick with us our whole lives, the morals behind the stories stick with us too. Above all, stories with victorious heroes teach us that our own enemies can be defeated by someone who is brave enough to take a stand.

Hamilton’s Mythology captures a wide range of Greek myths that can reach adults as easily as children. While there may be cultural differences between our lives and those of such mythological characters, many of the villains defeated by heroes in these stories relate to our own personal demons. One well-known hero from Greek Mythology, Hercules, was a strong warrior who defeated many enemies, but went insane and killed his whole family as a result. He then spent the rest of his life trying to atone for his sins, as many people from our own age try to cover over their sins with good deeds. None of the heroes presented in Greek myths are perfect—each have their faults. These heroes complete the quests given them, but they cannot complete the ultimate quest of all mankind—to defeat sin and death. Jesus Christ fulfilled this ultimate quest of mankind by atoning for all sins on the cross and defeating death by rising from it.

Hercules never could atone for his sins no matter how hard he tried, let alone atone for anyone else’s. He also did not defeat death. Even though he became a god according to the myth, he could not defeat death for everyone else. Death still reigns after Hercules’ quests were completed. The same goes for any other hero aside from Jesus. While we can learn from them the value of bravery and noble deeds, we must also take from them the understanding that only one man could and has defeated man’s greatest enemies. If we can admire literary heroes with so much zeal, how much more should we worship and serve the one hero who not only taught us as literary heroes do, but also saved us personally? No debt we could pay him would ever be enough, but he paid the price all the same because he loves us.

More Art!

It's not a Saturday, I know, but I figured that a post is so overdue that I wouldn't wait until a convenient Saturday rolled around. I also don't have a question or an essay for you today, but rather, I have some art to share with you. Enjoy!

This is one that I based off of a watercolor I saw on Pinterest. Instead of using watercolors, though, I opted for my new gray Faber-Castell pens.

This one is also based off of a Pinterest find. I've been testing out my Koi watercolors with paintings like this. Here I was primarily working on mixing colors and showing distance by fading out the colors of the flowers in the background.

Here I started to paint my new betta, Edmond, but I ended up tweaking the colors somewhat. Once more, this was me experimenting with my Koi watercolors.

This was a swan I saw in San Francisco recently. I made this with my gray Faber-Castell pens.

This came entirely from my head. I made it with my gray Faber-Castell pens.

Again, entirely from my own head, but based off of what Edmond looks like. I made this with my gray Faber-Castell pens.

This was the first watercolor painting I made with my Koi watercolors. I based this off of a tutorial for painting lupines that I found on Pinterest.

Question 7: Imagination

I apologize for not having posted in a while, but here's another essay from class. Enjoy!

~ ~ ~

How does a healthy imagination aid our faith?

Albert Einstein once said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Imagination has enabled famous writers and creators of all time to use their knowledge to make what they have become known for. So why is imagination so often downplayed as food only for children’s books, and inapplicable to daily life? As important as children’s books are in the development of a healthy mind, many adults lose their sense of imagination upon reaching what they call maturity, and cast their sights into the modern realm of business. Even those adults who do cling to imagination generally do so to escape from a monotonous or painful life. Both views are, in fact, wrong. Imagination is a God-given gift that, if exercised properly, brings us closer to God.

Imagination is the ability to see or conceive of what is not yet present to the senses. In light of this, imagination and reality are not mutually exclusive. Imagination does not ignore reality, but is actually based off of it. When man creates anything, he creates a sub-reality of God’s reality as described in the book of Genesis. A sub-reality must somehow, however radical the idea behind it may be, adhere to God’s creation while at the same time depend upon the human ability to grasp abstract ideas. Because of this, the creation of sub-realities draws a man closer to God and his act of creation. Secularists, on the other hand, have come to view imagination as an escape from reality and comfort for themselves in their sinful ways. This view is wrong because while it acknowledges the existence of imagination, it ignores the importance of rationalism, both of which God created to be used in wisdom.

Just as imagination should not be used as an escape from reality, it should also not be avoided for the sake of the world’s idea of maturity by depending upon rationalism. Maturation is actually the integration of imagination and rationalism. Realizing that the world we live in is important, while still holding onto imagination, allows us to understand God in a deeper way than rationalism alone allows us to. Thus, to truly mature, a man must reconcile these two ideas, not ignore one or the other. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” This means that imagination allows us to know things that we cannot perceive. Thus, imagination enables us to have faith in God, who cannot be observed in the way rationalism demands we be able to.

Since we cannot observe God and his Church, we must have a healthy imagination to be able to grasp an idea of them. At the fall of man, a spiritual and physical gap was created between man and God which can now only be bridged by a faith in Christ. And to have faith, as we have seen, we need imagination. Thus, imagination is a tool necessary for salvation. Our imagination allows us to grow more like Christ by giving us the ability to create a world in which we can perceive God in a way our physical senses cannot. By creating such a world, we do not view our created world as more important than God’s creation, but rather build off of the necessary and vividly beautiful structure created by God for such an understanding of him. In addition, a healthy, well-developed imagination gives human beings, whether child or adult, the ability to wonder at God’s creation. This wonder has been expressed in a variety of Psalms, including Psalm 92:4, which says, “For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy.” Without the sense of wonder produced through imagination, this verse would be meaningless.

Imagination is not a tool which can be claimed only by the profession of writers. It is a tool necessary in all walks of life, in every age, in every place. Imagination gives man the ability to seek after God’s goodness and beauty in whichever profession he goes into, be it mathematics, science, or writing. It allows him to create worlds based on the realm of rationalism which open up wells of truth that cannot be glimpsed through our worldly senses alone. Therefore, contrary to Einstein’s claim, imagination is not more important than knowledge because both imagination and knowledge are equally important. For without knowledge, one cannot exercise a proper use of  imagination, but without imagination, knowledge is useless.

A Change of Plans

I know I haven't written here in a long time, but I just wanted to let you know that I haven't given up on this blog. I still intend to post from time to time, though I may not do so every week as I first planned. When I do post, however, it will generally be on Saturdays.

Thank you to those who have kept up with me! I hope to post more in the future. :)

Essay: Finding Our Faces

Before reading this essay, I would recommend reading Till We Have Faces, the novel by C.S. Lewis this essay is based on. I hope you can understand my points without the background, but it's an excellent book, all the same.

~ ~ ~

Makeup, the internet, and programs for editing photographs have made it easy to hide one’s true face. If a woman were not content with her face, for whatever reason, she could hide it under a layer of fake imagery to the point where she became another person. Such a practice has become so commonplace that people have forgotten the importance of having a face. A face does not exist to be pretty, but to distinguish between different people. This idea of being different—of having an identity—has been lost to the materialistic view that there is no moral or spiritual significance to a face. By hiding the faces given to them at birth, such people become faceless in a sense, seeking to blend in with the world’s common desire to be beautiful. C.S. Lewis worked with this idea of facelessness in his novel, Till We Have Faces, which he based on the myth of Cupid and Psyche. The idea Lewis seemed to present in this work was that man has no face before God, unless he has been purged with the blood of Christ, when he is given Christ’s identity.

One of Lewis’ characters in Till We Have Faces, Orual, demonstrated one of the world's uses for having no face: hiding the ugliness of one’s true visage. Throughout the story, Orual became progressively aware of her ugliness, not just physically, but spiritually, too. And as a result, she decided to cover her face with a veil at all times. Orual also despised the vulnerability of going about barefaced. Without a veil, Orual’s eyes—which, in literature, are usually considered the windows to the soul—were open for the entire world to see through. But when she covered them with her veil, her identity disappeared. This idea of hiding is akin to Adam and Eve’s fig leaves in the Garden of Eden, after they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They used their leaves to cover up the shame of their sins, just as Orual used her veil to hide her sins from public view. This protection served her well for a time, when she became the queen of Glome.

When Orual took the throne, her veil was no longer merely a covering for her shame, but also a source of power. Orual’s power came from the fact that she could see the men in her court, but they could not see her, and thus could not judge how best to work with her. In a similar way, man cannot see God in His entirety, but He can see us. Thus, Orual tried to set herself up as a god. Orual’s facelessness was also similar to the goddess Ungit, the deity of Glome. Because Ungit was merely a lump of rock in the temple, and ergo had no face, the people (including Orual) had a tendency toward imagining faces for Ungit. The people also imagined faces for Orual when she wore her veil, varying between ravishingly beautiful and horrifying.

Man was made to have a face, and not just a physical one. He was also made to have a spiritual face in the presence of God. But man, in his sinful state, has no identity unless it is by the will of God Himself. This is because without God, man has no worth, nothing to recommend him to God because of his sinfulness. A man may try to be virtuous through his own power, but he will never be able to do enough on his own that can cover the debt of his sins. However, Christ died on the cross so that man could have standing with God. When Christ died and took on man’s lowly identity, He gave man His, so that he could be righteous in the presence of God. Thus, in a sense, man was given the opportunity to have Christ’s face. In the same way, at the end of Till We Have Faces, Orual looked at her reflection and saw that she looked like Psyche, her beautiful sister who had endured many trials for the sake of Orual.

Although physical beauty loses its purpose in death, the idea behind putting in effort to make oneself appear falsely beautiful applies to the soul, too. For if a woman’s goal in life is to be beautiful enough to fit a man’s ideal in attractiveness, she simply becomes another face lost in the crowd, having no identity. Her focus is centered on the world, not on what is to come after this world has passed away. Orual’s veil in Till We Have Faces was another form of makeup, since without her true face to remind the people of her ugliness, she was considered beautiful by almost the entire kingdom. At the end of the tale, though, Orual forsook her veil and, after a series of visions and arduous tasks, received the beauty of Psyche as her own. So too, Christians were given the beauty of Christ in the eyes of God when He died, taking man’s ugliness upon Himself.

Question 6: Is the Pen Mightier Than the Sword?

Is the pen mightier than the sword?

I have two conflicting sayings to present to you today:

1. The pen is mightier than the sword.
2. Actions speak louder than words.

If the pen is mightier than the sword, does that mean words actually speak louder than actions? And if actions really speak louder than words, then is the sword actually mightier than the pen? Which is it? Or are they both true? I would argue that they both actually have some truth to them. I'll start with the truth behind the first of the two.

What this first statement says is that the words of a skillful writer can sway a mind more thoroughly and more efficiently than a conquering king can in battle. A king can conquer a land, but that does not necessarily put the minds of the conquered people in his hand. They may be in his power for a time, but they do not necessarily believe what he tells them to. The conquered people may follow his laws but rebel against him in their minds if they believe his laws are unjust.

On the other hand, a man can sway a whole country to his views if he uses the right words. He does not even need to conquer the people in battle to win their hearts to him if they believe what he says is true. Even if what he says is not true and he poses his ideas in a desirable way, the people can be swayed. So in that sense, the pen is mightier than the sword.

The second saying can be applied more generally than the first. In any situation in life, if you have to prove an idea is true, you can speak all you like about it and still not have anyone believe you. Even if you speak well, the best method to back up your ideas is to have actions supporting them. This is not to say that words cannot convince people, but that actions are more powerful. Not just actions involving physical combat, like in the first saying, but any kind of action. For example, if you wanted to show the power of forgiveness, you could talk all you liked about and still not make any sense. But if you proved its power by actually forgiving someone yourself, or showing the result of another person forgiving someone, that would have much more weight with your audience.

This idea can also be applied to the first saying. If a man took the first saying to heart and attempted to sway a people with his words instead of the sword, he would still need actions to prove his ideas. He wouldn't have to conquer the people to prove he is powerful, but if he were simply trying to prove the validity of a scheme of government, he could point out examples in history of when it has worked. This would have much more weight with the people, because the man has made it no longer about his own words, but about the proof of the past.

Thus, both ideas are true and can be applied in the same instance. Words are powerful, but can only get you so far before you need examples to back up your ideas.

Question 5: What is Beauty?

What is beauty?

I'd like to start off this question with a Bible verse on the subject of beauty.

Ecclesiastes 3:10-13 - "What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil--this is God's gift to man."

There are, no doubt, more verses on the subject of beauty. But this one I find striking, since it says, "He has made everything beautiful in its time." Not just a few paintings here and there. But the verse also specifically says, "in its time." I would take this to mean that we may not see the beauty in everything all at once, but that in God's great plan for the world, everything has its time and place to make God's plan beautiful.

Take a look at these two images:

The first of these is a painting by Andy Warhol. The second, however, is simply a picture of some clouds. Which do you find more beautiful?

Some people may say they find the first picture beautiful. But why is it beautiful? What is it in the image that makes it beautiful? It is merely an image of Campbell's soup cans. All this does is ground the viewer in reality, reminding him or her that soup cans exist.

The clouds, on the other hand, tend to evoke a feeling that there is more to the world than what meets the eye. The clouds can ground us in reality in the same way that the soup cans do, but something about them draws us to God. I would say this is because of what Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, that "he has put eternity into man's heart". Through such images, we see a part of the beauty of God. In a sense, beautiful images serve as vessels for the light of God. We see the vessel, but we also see light shining through it.

The clouds could just be clouds, but they are also awe-inspiring. Their beauty tells us that they did not come about by accident, but by the hand of God. Thus, beauty does not just please the eye. Warhol's soup cans might please some people's eyes, but they do not possess that beauty that draws the viewer out of himself and into the idea that God is beautiful.

But then the next part of Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, "yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end." We see a part of God's eternity through beauty, but we cannot comprehend His entirety because He is God. If we could explain all that He is, He would not be God, but merely another creation of the human mind. But eventually, when this world passes away and those who believe in God go to be with Him, they will see the true beauty of God.

Sorry!

What with the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special coming out today, and everything else going on in my life, I do not have a new post for today. Sorry! I do have a question I plan to answer, though, and I hope to have written something for next Saturday. That question is: what is beauty?

See you next week, and have a happy Thanksgiving!