Van Gogh meets The Far Side..in Africa

This is a picture Dean took in Swaziland Africa. The first time I saw it I thought it looked like a work of art. Something about it spoke to me.


I knew there was a painting in me trying to get out, and when we decided we wanted to go to Swaziland this coming April on a missions trip, I knew one way to raise money would be to paint something and auction it off.

Last night Jennifer Jearreau was talking about her trip to Swaziland and It made me remember this picture. I immediately knew that this was to be my painting.

At first I thought I would try a straight up duplication of it. But when I paint, I talk to God and ask him to guide me and as I started painting this today, I felt like He clearly said "let the picture inspire you but don't try to copy it, create an original".

SO this is what He gave me and what I painted.


These first two pictures of it were taken with Dean's iphone, which kinda "browns" pictures I think but shows better detail.


You can't see it really well but there are streaks of red on different sections of the tree. I'm not sure why, but I just knew they had to be there.


I took this picture with my camera, it's more true to color but doesn't show the detail as good.

It's funny because I read the book, The Divine Commodity which has a thread of Van Gogh's life running through it as kinda a sub story-basis for the contemporary analogy of the Church's love of consumerism, it's hard to explain the relevance but let's just say, I got an education on Van Gogh while reading that book. I can see the Van Gogh influence in this painting.

But also, I see The Far Side! I used to read The Far Side all the time, all throughout my 20's especially. I still have a big book of Far Side cartoons. This painting reminds me of The Far Side for some reason. Maybe it's the birds?

And it's Africa. It's inspired by a picture taken by my husband, while he was in Swaziland, how cool is that? Why did he take this picture? He thought it looked cool he said, the birds, the tree, it looked like a piece of art. Now it has inspired art, art to be auctioned off to get him back to Swaziland, and me there for the first time.

SO deep, so profound, so artsy, so spiritual and yet so "The Far Side" all at the same time. HA! I love it! Thanks God.

(We will be getting note cards, post cards and posters printed up to sell and I will be posting details about the Auction soon)