In the last few years, I’ve had times when I was busy working on projects that I knew were part of my calling and others when I didn’t have any idea what to do. At one point, I decided to go back to something I did quite a lot of as a kid: drawing. When I first went back to drawing again, it initially felt like I was wasting my time on a “triviality”. However, as I continued following that urge to keep working on my artistic skills, something happened and I began to realize that my “hobby” was not a waste of time! This episode will be a follow up to a previous one I did on generational blessings. If you’re wondering how God might have plans to use your talents, consider this part of my testimony.

Art & Creativity: A Central Part Of Our Human Design

A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men.

Proverbs 18:16 (KJV)

Let me start off by saying that there is an important distinction to be made between using your talents and skills as you see fit versus using them according to a much higher purpose. I will try to elaborate on this in a later episode but, there is a very big potential that you can get stuck at the level of a talent or gift and completely miss your true purpose in life. That would have happened to me except that God deliberately closed doors of opportunity to me that prevented me from doing what I really wanted with my life (flying, anyone…??)

Like I say, we’ll deal more with that later but for now, I want to say a few words about the need to use the skills you have and develop them for reasons that may not be obvious just yet. In my case, one of my hobbies as a kid was drawing. Particularly, I liked drawing airplanes (no surprise). The last time I remember drawing anything was primarily when I was in high school but then, a very few times after that in my 20’s and 30’s before it just ended. It was not until God pushed me out of the Air Force after 20 years that I started feeling the urge to bring back some of those artistic skills again. I didn’t know what to do with it and it felt like a massive waste of time but, I tried a few little projects and made very little progress.

My mind was just not into hobbies that did not seem to accomplish any clear objective, particularly in the form of making money and getting me somewhere in a career. Art was never going to be a serious pursuit of mine or make any money (so it seemed). We’ve all heard the saying “starving artist” and from my experience, that is exactly the truth. Art serves a purpose but other than entertaining people and brightening up our surroundings, it does not exactly make the world go around. And, having said that, God is the ultimate artist and all you have to do is look at nature around you and see that His creativity has no limits!

We are made in the image and likeness of God and that means everything He does, we are intended to do the same, just on a lower level. Creativity is really one of the top most important elements of our existence and we humans display that in many ways every day. Think about it… when you decide what to wear, don’t you stop and think about how it’s going to look, especially in combination with other items of clothing? Don’t you pay attention to your hair? Women spend lots of time on make up and cosmetics. We buy cars and home decorations all because they look good to us. Art is far more a foundational part of our lives than we realize on a daily basis.

So let’s now shift this a bit because my own return to artistic pursuits started to take on a whole new dimension after I began getting the technical details of the invention that I now have ready to build.

Practical Technical Design Elements

And I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, To devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, And in cutting of stones, to set them, and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship.

Exodus 31:3-5 (KJV)

I’ve mentioned this before but, when I had to start sketching the technical design of the invention that God was giving me (via my wife), I realized how much my talents needed a big upgrade. When I was a kid, I occasionally drew sketches with a fair amount of detail but, none of them were at the engineering level of accuracy. When I started getting the divine design for the invention, I initially drew everything in rather rough manner just to try to get the basic idea. After compiling all the drawings and looking over them many times, I started to realize this thing was not going to be built unless each component was drawn to scale.

I needed to be able to present these images to people who had the technical skills to create what I was given and that meant, it all had to be put into very exact measurements. I needed to draw each component to scale and to show each part relative to the others – all using the same scale. What good would it do to have drawings of one component at 1:100 when another was done at 1:20? Each component had to be sketched separately and then combined together so you could see how the whole thing fit together. Each sketch needed its own separate drawing, just like how you would separate and compartmentalize different aspects of a complex project.

So, despite my childhood artistic leanings, I needed to greatly upgrade my skills to accommodate the needs of this new engineering project. At no time in my life did I really think I’d be doing something quite like this! I had a lot of work to do and that meant learning how to use technical drawing software (apps). Most of the software that professional designers use was very expensive and beyond my ability to acquire. But, I did have something that I could use (a technical sketching app) so I started with that.

Just as I said above, I was feeling very lost in part of the last few years and I had no idea what God wanted me to do with my time. I started to feel the urge to just start sketching what came to mind. In Colorado, I would sketch natural scenes, which forced me to learn how to use the app in different ways that I might have otherwise. I learned how to use layering, where you draw part of a scene on one “page” and then another part of the same scene on top of that on another “page” (layer). This allows you to keep parts of a drawing separate from the others so you can go back and edit them without interfering with other parts.

Say for instance, you want to draw a mountain with clouds in the sky in the background and hills and trees in the foreground. You do that by drawing each on separate layers. The mountains are one layer, the sky is on another, the foreground (trees, rocks, flowers, etc) are on another layer.

The same is true for scenes of cars, houses, airplanes, trains, etc. You put each of the major elements on separate layers. This helps you draw things in perspective with a 3-dimensional approximation. It also allows you to move objects around when you later realize they looked better in a different position on the drawing. So, this is the basic intro to how to create digital art. Two prominent apps used by many today are Procreate and Concepts. Because I am more of a technical design person, I use Concepts. Many others who are more into pure artistry often use Procreate.

Finding Right Use – ACTION!

But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?

James 2:20-22 (KJV)

Fast forwarding to the main point of this episode… as I began doing more and more artwork on the app, the more my skills developed. I started with simple drawings and, the more I did, the more complex and detailed they became. I began learning to use different app features and sketching techniques which gave me the abilities I needed in order to transfer for use into the invention design. Ultimately, I was able to put the whole technical design into proper scale where each major component could be turned on and off according to their different layers. Eventually, I was able to produce each sketch in a format that I could show engineers who would be needed to build and operate the device.

But, all this started because, God put me in a position where I had nothing else to do but start drawing again. As a result, I have tons of drawings of many kinds and I put them up for sale (starving artist…) Many of my designs you can now find on the same website I use for some of my ebooks – Gumroad.

Beyond just that however, I began doing something else… I started designing what I call “Space Jets” – a new form of air and space craft that can operate in both the atmosphere of earth and in space. And that came to me because of how many dreams I’ve had about how the technology my company will create will be used to change how we travel on earth and in space. Not that all my drawings will transfer 100% into a new industry. That’s not really the point. It’s that all these drawings I’ve done are what I did to put my faith into action. It is what all of us are required to do when God shows us things in dreams – TAKE ACTION!

If you have never seen my digital art and how I went through the process I explained in this episode, you can go now using the link in the promo ad below. I still add new drawings on a somewhat irregular basis and all of them are for sale at a rather low price. Most sketches are made at 300 dpi resolution and you can print them off on mugs, t-shirts, poster, cards or whatever. The only stipulation is that they must be used for personal use only. Mass production of my work is PROHIBITED.

If you should buy any of my digital art products, that is a great way of supporting my work here – in all aspects of what I do! As I say, much of this is inspired by my dreams at night and has a direct link to what my invention company will do when the time comes. Thank you to those who support my efforts!

To be continued…

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