Spiritual Art Blog - *Ed P

Friendship

A friend asked me to do a cover for a newsletter with the theme Friendship. This is the first rough concept which I will now work into a finished piece.

Meeting Place

The Meeting Place picture is now getting to the point where I'm happy with its composition. All the elements are beginning to work together. This layout will be the basis for the final picture. Now it is time to start on a larger size and working out the details.

Meeting Place

This is the latest development of the picture Meeting Place. It's not quite right yet but it is going in the right direction. I'm not happy with the position of the crystal meeting place, it needs to be higher up above the mountains.

Meeting Place

As I was working on this sketch of Meeting Place the colours and image seemed familiar for some reason. Then I remembered that it was similar to a picture on the cover of a book I was reading recently.

Can you see the similarity?
I then got to thinking, did the artist who created the book cover go to the same place where I now was? The more sceptical would say that I was influenced by wht I had see previously on the book cover. I would say I came across this on my explorations to create the picture I have in my mind's eye. The final picture will probably different from where it is now. Let's see how it turns out.
By the way if you are interested in the book Those Wonderful ECK Masters, you can get
it on ECK Books here:
http://www.eckbooks.org/items/Those_Wonderful_ECK_Masters-96-0.html
or on Amazon here:
http://www.amazon.com/Those-Wonderful-Masters-Harold-Klemp/dp/1570432171

Meeting Place

Here's a further development of the Meeting Place picture. A friend who saw last week's sketch, asked me where this place was. “It's a place I go to during my contemplation exercises. If I'm looking for advice or insight into a subject, I ask to meet those with the relevant wisdom in a place such as this. It is like a cloud made of crystals.” I explained.

Meeting Place

Here’s a concept sketch for the picture meeting Place. I’m still playing with the composition and various elements within the picture. I’m trying to get a balance between the actual meeting place and its surrounding landscape.

 

 

Meeting Place

Here’s a sketch for a picture I’ve just started. The working title is Meeting Place but that may change as the picture develops. 
I started this new picture because the Wayshower is turning out to be really slow. Putting cloths on almost 500 people takes a lot more time than I first thought. When I get closer to finishing it, I’ll let you see it.

The Wayshower

This is the point in creating a picture that I realise there is a lot more work in it than I first thought. I’m still working on dressing the crowd of nearly 500 people. As I haven’t had much time during the week it adds to the slowness of this part. At times like these I begin thinking it might have been easier to photograph the 500 people or maybe not. The image above shows some progress in getting the crowd dressed.

The Wayshower

I’ve been working on the crowds recently. I haven’t counted the number of people in this picture but it is around 470. The problem with the models in the 3D software I use is that they all come naked with no cloths on, so now I have to dress them all. And you think you had problems dressing your kids?

The Wayshower

I’ve been working on the ‘crowds’ who are looking towards the Wayshower for the direction to go to. At the moment they are all a bit naked. The next phase is dressing them. Hopefully they won’t be too fussy about their cloths.
The crowd is in a particular shape. Can you guess what the shape is? Click on 'Comments' below and give me your best guess.

The Wayshower

This is the basis of the final picture. Last weeks sketch is what I’ll be using as base for the final picture. I’m now working on a high resolution file so that when it is enlarged the quality of the image will be excellent. Now it’s time to get into the hard work of creating the picture.

 

How to see the good things in the problems in life

Thought for the week

Why things happen the way they do

Have you ever wondered how to see the good things in the problems in life or why things happen the way the do? Why don’t things go the way we would like them to? How come some times things get in the way and other things help us get to our goal? I suppose our basic question is: Why do things happen the way they do?

If we see life as a way of learning about ourselves, the Souls around us and how life works, we’ll have a positive view and be able to see the good things in our lives. However not every one can see things this way and we often have to go through some difficulties before we can see the benefit of them.

See the good things
Sometimes it is hard to see the positive side of the problems in life. Illness or sickness can be challenging to accept as positive. A friend who recently went through about six months of illness was able to see the benefit of it after she had come through it. While she was dealing with the illness, she had a very difficult time, ending up in hospital a number of times, loosing her memory and coming close to death at times. On her recovery she was able to appreciate her life and the gift that it is. She sees that life offers her chances to do things and explore situations.

The illness also gave her an insight into some of the challenges her parents faced in their lives. She could now appreciate why they brought her up they way they did. She realised that they were doing the best they could with the facilities and skills they had. She could see that they suffered their own sicknesses but still did their best to give her a good life. If she hadn’t had the illness she wouldn’t have been able to appreciate her parent’s situation. After it all, she was a happier and healthier Soul. She was able to see the good things in the problems in life.

Change our attitude
If we look at life as a constant battle it may be time to change our attitude. If we can begin to look at the events in our lives as good things and ways for us to learn something or to grow a little, we’ll begin to gain a little more happiness with our problems in life. This will happen to us all eventually. As we go through our many experiences we gain some knowledge and understanding of the problems in life, what they mean, what they have to teach us and why they happen to us.

The Force
In our lives we have our physical world, our inner world with our thoughts, insights, knowledge and intuition. We also have a force, a power or energy which holds our worlds together so that we can interact with the other Souls around us. Some call this the Life Force, the Holy Spirit, the Eck, or the Force as mentioned in the Star Wars movies.

This Force interacts with our memories of this life and other lives to see what we have learned previously and what we have yet to discover. Some call this our destiny. The method of selecting the tasks to be learned in life is often referred to as karma. Our karma, or the things we need to learn, is what decides the events in our lives. Our karma is the basis of all the good things and the problems in life. It is like our personal training plan. We still have our free will and we can sometimes avoid or deal with the problems in life as the appear.

Before we are born, our major lessons are decided upon and the approximate time they will arrive into our lives. If we are good at learning the lessons we have been given, we may move on to other challenges. If we avoid them or make a mess of them, they will come up again until we understand how to deal with them. We could say that the problems in life will stay with us until they become the good things in life.

The best thing in life
Let’s look at these lessons as a way to gain insight into our lives and ourselves. One of the key ways of developing a good attitude to our lessons or karma is to approach them with a feeling of love in our hearts. If we can bring love into everything that we do, we will begin to see how life is a wonderful opportunity to interact with and learn from the many Souls, events and circumstances in our life. Love is one of the good things in life, its probably the best thing in life! An attitude of love will release us from the drudgery of what we may have seen as problems in life. We will begin to see the positive side of events and obstacles.

An angry attitude or one where we see ourselves as a victim of life shuts off the flow of love and insight. Anger blinds us and confines us to a dark prison within ourselves. Anger limits our focus to the problems in life. Love is the key to being released from karma. It allows us to see the good things in life.

Ask ourselves questions
If we can see how there is love in every situation we come across in life, we’ll begin to open ourselves to the good thins in life. One of the ways of doing this is to ask ourselves questions like:
Why is this happening FOR me?
What can I learn from this?
Is this something I’ve been avoiding?
Where is the love in this?

We can also be aware of the good things which can out of the problems in life by thoughts such as:
If I get through this I’ll be better able to deal with it the next time it appears.
I may not know why I’m in this situation but time will tell me.
What I’m facing into now will help me in the future.
I can be positive or negative towards this situation, which will I choose?

Hopefully there are a few ideas here which you can use to help you see the good things in the problems in life.

Wishing you love in your life.

*Ed Parkinson

If you’d like to read about more good things in life, click here to go to our Spiritual Writings page.

The Wayshower

This picture has brightened up a little with the yellow sky having now been added. The crowds of people who make up the land masses of the Earth are all striving to go in the direction being shown by the Wayshower. There is still a bit of work before this gets to a satisfactory sketch but we’re getting there.

The Wayshower

The Wayshower continues to develop. With this sketch I’ve gone off on a different tangent. What do you think?

The Wayshower

In this sketch the land masses of the world are filled with sparkling Souls who are searching for the way to happiness, peace and love. It is the deepest desire we have as humans, to be happy and we search for the Wayshower to help us find it. This search is often subconscious, where we go looking for happiness in drink, drugs, money, food, sex, power and many other things that promise happiness. Unfortunately they all fail to keep their promise, so we continue our search for someone who can show us the way.

The Wayshower

Here’s another concept for the Wayshower. The swirls represent the hectic life we are living from day to day and the stars are us Souls lost in the swirl.

Wayshower

This is a first sketch of a concept for Wayshower, a person or Soul who shows us the way to our inner spiritual worlds and teaches us the art of discovering love in our lives.

We're not alone

This picture ‘We’re Not Alone’ is now finished. Click on the image above to see a larger version. In the post below you’ll get some insight on my thinking behind the picture.

We’re Not Alone

The colouring has been brightened in this picture, We’re Not Alone. The guide or Angel has changed from being a face looking over the lonely Soul, to one of reaching out with open arms. It reflects the idea that life will help us if we look in the right direction with the right attitude.

She is having a bad hair day at the moment but hopefully I’ll be able to sort that out for her.

 

 

We’re not alone

This picture is now moving along nicely. The concept is begining to take shape and the elements of the picture are coming together.