Thou Art With Me - Live painting concept

Highpoint Church contacted me about a week back. They were looking for someone to do a live painting for an upcoming special event. It looks to be a very inspiring event and very relevant given the economic times, the emotions of the holidays, and the start of the new year. When Life Hurts is Saturday, January 3, 2009 Highpoint Church welcomes Ravi Zacharias to Memphis, TN. From their website:

Where is God when life hurts?  We've all faced difficult circumstances and asked this question. Unfortunately pain and struggle is part of the human experience; thankfully we do have a God who cares.  International Christian author and speaker, Ravi Zacharias will help you see where God is when life hurts.

I was asked to do a live painting to match the theme, but they ended up having some last minute changes and decided that it would be best not to have art that night. Oh well, maybe some other time. Here are the rough concepts for the painting i would have done.

 

I think that I would have rather done the thumbnail on the left. A profile figure would be easier to paint in one sitting. There are always limitations when doing a live painting. 

Here is the small painted version I started. It's just a rough and I didnt finish the figure in the middle since the request was canceled. But I think you can see where I was going. Yes, it's inspired by another Stirring Artist's work. Teresa (Terri) West Cater is awesome. She use to be the gallery manager at The Stirring but sadly she had to move far far away. Her work is incredible and her ability to capture so much emotion in her realism painting is breathtaking. Her painting Lamentations is chilling. My concept was to simplify the piece (because face it I am not that gifted) and make it interactive. People would come up at the end and write in black ink on the red back ground their worries, fears, pain, etc. And/or they can write in white ink on the hands of the Lord comforting promises, scripture, words about God such as "I am with you, savior, grace, renewer, redeemer, I will protect you." etc.