DOUBLE TAKE - Sunday Painter Part 2

 Have you ever done a double take? (for the ones who don't know: you see something, and it's so shocking that you can't believe what you saw, so you look again!) And horrors - it's true. You saw it right! That's a little how I felt becoming a Sunday painter.

 ©18 x 24 Watercolor, St.Germain

 How did you become a Sunday painter?

 Writers have called artists "prophets" because in a time of societal changes, the artists are the first to show it in their work Often this is seen in their style and approach to painting.

The whole decade of the nineties was a turnover, starting 2months before the new Year of 1990, with the fall of Communism and. culminating in Sept. 2001 as a monumental change.  Since then several levels of society have not been the same. 

In the nineties, my family went as well through some big changes.  Suddenly  my  small friendly watercolors changed from one day to another into working in oil on 24 x 30 inch canvas with sober and semi-abstract forms. The change was big because I had never ever painted with oil before!

That whole story is written on one of the pages of my website www.stgermainart.com

Seven years later (2004)I went to a mid size conference (about 1300 people attending). The day before, I knew that I knew that I knew that one of the speakers was going to speak about multiplication. 
Don' t ask me how I knew. I did not have a dream, or vision, nor did I hear I voice from heaven. 
I just knew!
In the course of the day I remembered that a long time ago I had painted 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. (its the story of the feeding of the 5000  where 5 loaves of bread were being multiplied, enough to feed 5000 men and their families).

I thought it was very strange, and never heard of people doing that,  but had decided to take that painting with me. Needless to say, I also felt conspicuous. It's rather difficult to hide a 24 x 30 inch painting under your coat or sweater!

© Five Loaves and Two Fish, 24 x 30, Oil, St Germain

The next evening, I was sitting on pins and needles, thinking what if you are wrong? Nevertheless, as soon as the speaker said that multiplication was going to come the coming year, I stepped out of my seat and brought it to the platform. To my astonishment  the speaker was not even surprised. 
He saw me coming and started laughing, saying, "Oh, I love those prophetic people." Then the people in the video booth, showed the painting on a big screen (about 8 x 10 feet) on the platform. And a ripple of  "Ooooh" went through the audience.

And that was how I became a Sunday painter.

Now I had passed this hurdle, I was more confident  and asked the pastors who were in charge of this conference if I could paint on Sunday, and they accepted. 
First I painted in Mott Auditorium, and then in the Ambassador Auditorium, both in Pasadena, CA.


Since the story will get too long, hold on curious ones, in the next part of the story I will come to that painting with the birds:)