A Lockscreen for You
Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and welcome to the Christmas season.
How did we get to December so fast? But that’s okay; I just love this time of year. Like you, I love celebrating the birth of Christ; aren’t you grateful that Jesus, the light of the world came into our darkness to rescue us? I love talking about it, thinking about it and even painting it. That is right; the light of Jesus has always been a fun subject for me to paint. Why do I say fun? Well, let me give you a quick art lesson on how to paint light in such a way that it’s surprisingly playful.
I have this particular painting that shows this. It’s a rendering of Joseph and Mary (on a donkey) as they follow the star. They are on a winding mountain path that’s about to dip down into Bethlehem. When people look at this painting, the first thing they say is, “Joni, how did you get that star to glow? It looks like there’s this little iridescent lightbulb behind the canvas! And they are right. It honestly appears as though light is emanating from the painting. They ask me “How did you do that?” That’s when I ask them to consider the property of light—like, what actually makes light glow? What makes it so bright? I give them a couple of hints. I ask them to consider a rainbow or a prism; what happens (I ask them) when light shines through a prism? Or when the sunlight strikes raindrops at a certain angle? People automatically say, “Well, the light is refracted, it’s split apart into the color spectrum like purple, blue, green, yellow, orange and then red.”
Aha, they’ve got it! Light is actually color. We simply can’t see all the colors of light because our eyes can’t pick up the wave length of blue, or the wave length green, or yellow unless we see that light when it’s refracted through a prism or through a collection of raindrops and sunshine. And when we do, we are seeing light as pure color. So I tell them: If I want something to glow like that star I paint a little bit of white in the center of the star, and then I apply in concentric circles, the colors of the spectrum in their proper order. I softly blend each color into the next, and when you stand back from the painting, you see…light. It’s amazing. So amazing that if the order of the colors is incorrect, it ain’t gonna glow. There’s no light (by the way, this lesson isn’t original to me or Thomas Kinkade; the French impressionists came up with it; or, rather I should say, God invented it)! Now here’s the kicker: I will tell them that when Jesus, before He ascended, told the disciples that they were now to be the light of the world, He was inasmuch saying, “Guys, you should bring color to this dark world.” Jesus is the light of the world? He’s also the color of the world, bringing with Him a wide spectrum of delightful gifts like joy and peace, hope and love.
And I would love for you to see this remarkable painting. I have posted it on joniradio.org today, and I’ve also made it a lock screen that you can download to your smart phone. This way, you can give the same art lesson to all your friends, and you’ll have the painting right on your phone to show them. You can tell your Christian friends that they are the color of the world; they should spread the love and joy of Jesus to everyone they know. Teach that wonderful lesson from your lock screen (or some people call it the Homepage or Wallpaper on their smart Phone). Just go to joniradio.org and download it to your smart phone, then select it as your wallpaper on your IPhone or lock screen, whatever, and you are good to go. And while you’re at joniradio.org, I’d love to give you my Christmas art fold-out. Just ask for it and look to find the light in all my paintings.
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© Joni and Friends
