I jotted this sentence down in my quiet time and rediscovered it while I was going back through my notebooks. I really struggled to come up with an illustration. My first thought was trying to stop a vehicle or bulldozer by standing on its hood or blade and pushing at its body. But then I thought, "Well, I couldn't stop those even if I was on the ground." What I needed was an illustration that showed pushing as achievable, but futile in its results. I got the idea for a conveyor belt about half a day later. I guess the guy there could push the box, but he'd have to push it faster than the belt was moving. 

I did the drawing in Clip Studio. It's going to replace Sketchbook as my go-to for digital, but the learning curve is a lot steeper. I'm using the Frenden watercolor brushes for painting. There was a lot I wasn't super happy with, but I Jake Parker's Finished Not Perfect mantra and drew the line after about three hours of messing around with it. 

You may be surprised to find that I do all my lettering in PowerPoint. It's weird maybe, but the text tools are pretty powerful. Clip Studio actually is good at this, but I have yet to teach myself how to do it. One other little factoid: I drew the arrows on the conveyor belt in PowerPoint and used the transparency setting to help them blend in. I felt like the picture needed them to make sure the viewer understood what was going on. 

This cartoon surprised me. I read the quote, had the idea, started drawing Saturday night, and finished it on Sunday. I had a few issues with the perspective, but overall, I think it works. The quote is from Moses Hess' book, Rome and Jerusalem, written after Hess realized the futility of trying to fit in to European culture. Abandoning Judaism, embracing socialism, and even marrying a Catholic did not protect him from anti-Semitism. 

It seems to me that Hess was pretty spot on. The last thing the world wants is a knock-off of the world. Yet when Christians try to fit in to maintain their level of comfort, that's exactly what they are - counterfeit citizens of the world. We'll never really fit in, and worse, we'll be seen as Christian frauds. The Berlin Wall was a public-relations disaster for communism. How can you sell a worldview as "the best" when you have to build walls to keep people from escaping it? That's what we do to Christianity when we try to fit in to the world. It's signaling that we really like their system better. What many in the world really want is peace, joy, love, purpose, and meaning - to have someone worthy of loving, to serve one worthy of serving. That's what we can offer them, but only when our purpose is aligned, not with the world, but with the Kingdom of God. 

One little post-script about this drawing. The right-hand side of the drawing got erased a lot, because I didn't know what I wanted there. I tried a city in the clouds, then a city in the clouds with a gate, but they just didn't convey the idea I wanted. Then I thought about Ezekiel's temple. I ended up combining it with the description of the tree in Revelation 22:1-3. I ended up putting a gate back in just to fill in the foreground, but I botched it and had to edit it in the digital scan.  

I made this one after listening to an interview between Shawn Wilson of Rev Reads (a great book review YouTube Channel) and a bunch of contributors to the book "Forged from Reformation." The book argues (in one essay) that Plymouth Brethren notable John Nelson Darby was the Martin Luther of the Anglican Church, and in many ways Darby's journey mirrors that early reformer's journey. During the interview, Shawn asked the men this question: "If you could make a Mt. Rushmore of the Reformation, who would be on it?" The answer to that question inspired the above drawing. If you can't figure them out, from left to right it's Wycliff, Luther, Calvin, and Darby. 

I sketched this with pencil, then used a light-board to transfer the sketch to watercolor paper. I then inked it and colored it with Copic markers. After scanning, I made a few digital adjustments. Specifically, I moved Darby's ear, added a texture layer, and colored the sky with some digital watercolor. 

A couple of other facts: First, this picture was used in the second part of the aforementioned interview, as seen in the thumbnail below. Second, it's the first (and so far only) picture I've ever drawn that has been framed. I sent it to a scholarly acquaintance on Twitter, a Darby fan who I've never met in person, and he put it on his wall! That version doesn't have the digital adjustments. 

This is the first in a series of posts about God's provision for all. Each post will highlight a biblical account where God's provision was effectively unlimited. The reference is from Exodus 12:23. 

This is another "HD Remaster" of an older concept. The original, below, was drawn on a whiteboard sometime back in the fall of 2020. I took a picture of it and later colored it in Paint.net. The new one took a lot longer, but there was a ton of experimentation with Sketchbook Pro, so it took longer than it should have. The quote is from R. C. Chapman. He has the honor of being the first person quoted twice on here. 

I drew this for Inktober in Oct of 2019, but revived it for this A. T. Pierson quote. If you're curious about church history, check out Pierson's account of this period. It's a pretty short read and lots of good stuff in it. 

​In C. S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, Lewis imagines a seasoned demon instructing a rather inept pupil. Rarely has a book so perfectly captured the nature of man. In this particular admonition, the elder demon encourages the inflammation of "all extremes, except extreme devotion to the enemy [God]." These include both patriotism and pacifism. I find this important to understand in today's political and social climate. Extremes become our guiding principles, pushing our Faith into the realm of simple support for our extreme.  

This was the first post where I had both Draw Near as a "real thing" and a didactic message in mind. It really pushes the limit on how much text I can fit in this format... but it also closer to what I really hope to make Draw Near into. My wife Christina suggested the colored backgrounds on the second and third images, which was a brilliant idea and really brought the whole post together, artistically speaking.

The passage it's based on (Jeremiah 3:3-4) was one that I came across during my morning Bible reading. It strongly convicted me, especially in the area of responding to stuff on the internet, where I could spend 25 minutes crafting a YouTube comment response that only two people will ever read. Alternatively, I could pray for a missionary friend... or make a new DN blog post. :) 

The first two images were another artistic experiment. I used a (mostly) non-pressure sensitive brush, kind of like using a Micron pen instead of a brush pen. I also stuck to 3 tone (base, shading, and highlights) coloring with no blending. It made drawing a lot easier and still looks good. Not sure yet how it's going to look on larger images. 

Stephen Westerholm's "Preface to the Study of Paul" is an excellent and in-depth primer for those looking for a broad overview of the book. This is a quote from one of Westerholm's footnotes to his discussion of Romans 9:17-18. It's my personal belief that God found the biggest donkey in all of Egypt and put him on the throne at just the right time. Interesting thing to think about when we're contemplating leadership in this realm.