12 Days of Christmas Prayer by Adams Media

Author:Adams Media
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christmas, prayer, holidays
Publisher: Adams Media, Inc.
Published: 2011-11-21T00:00:00+00:00

For the Seventh Day of Christmas

John’s Gift

By Richelle Putnam

THE FIRST TIME my son, John, held a crayon, he set out to create something: a cat, a dog, a tree, or a creature and place no one had ever seen before. He drew while watching television, eating at the table, and riding in the car. He drew on homework, in school and in church, as if an unseen force drove his fingers, and he couldn’t stop.

At age five, he took art lessons, and on more than one occasion, his teacher told me, “He has the gift.” She explained how she could teach the basics of drawing and the different techniques of painting watercolor, pastels, charcoal, acrylic, and oils. “But,” she said, “a talent like John has comes from God.”

She took me on a tour of her studio. “I set different models on that table and ask the students to draw what they see,” she said. She showed me art her students had done: vases, bowls of fruit, a piece of driftwood. Each piece a masterpiece created by a child’s hands.

“You have some talented students,” I said.

She smiled. “Let me show you some of John’s work.”

I followed her to another stack where she picked up the top picture.

“This is John’s painting of the fruit.” I took the artwork and followed her as she guided me through his painting.

“Notice the detail, how he shaded the shadow of the bowl underneath and highlighted the light reflecting off the orange?” I nodded. “But look beyond the bowl.”

I scanned the page, holding the curling edges taut. There was a light above the painted bowl of fruit. I glanced over at the light above the table. It was identical to the painted version, down to each tiny link in the chain holding the fixture.

“Look at this,” his instructor said pointing at his painting. “My art books on the table, my paint jar, and the shelf beside the table with each item.”

I looked at each and compared them on the real items. Chills of amazement ran through me. “He sees beyond the obvious,” she said. “He sees the bigger picture.”

She chose another of John’s drawings, a fire-breathing dragon with enormous wings and a tiny figure of a man fighting the creature with his sword. Each individual scale had been drawn on the dragon and the fire exploding from its mouth and nostrils was so real, you would hesitate touching it for fear of being burned.

The ground beneath John’s figures was just as complex, with different-sized stones, tiny cracks, wide crevices, and dust rising beneath the valiant man’s feet. The sky revealed a bright orange sun setting behind a rocky mountain range. His teacher said, “Most artists draw from models or landscapes they see. But John can draw this kind of detail in things he doesn’t see or may have never seen. Only a select few have this gift.”

Gift — there was that word again, and as I soon discovered, gifts can come with trials.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.