Messy Sketches

A couple of weeks ago I shared that I’m embarking on a new and exciting book adventure! I signed a publishing deal with Tyndale House Publishing for my picture book currently titled, The Way Back Home.

This week I’ve begun loosely sketching concept art for the book. These are small, messy pencil drawings that don’t look like much. If you were to run across one of them, you’d most likely crumple it up and toss it in the trash. I’ve done that myself with one of my favorite old, messy, sketches that I’ve been saving for years—always hoping to make it into a painting one day. I’ve dug it back out of the trash at least twice! It’s so faint, you can hardly see it and it’s drawn on lined paper, splattered with paint. It’s not a beautiful drawing, but it’s full of emotion that reaches towards something lovely.

That’s the thing about messy sketches—what they lack in precision, they make up for with emotion. It makes sense because feelings are so often messy.

When I’m working on concept art (creating messy sketches) I like to scatter wonderful picture books around me and pore over them throughout the day.  I look at them first thing in the morning with breakfast, then again in the afternoon as I sip coffee and eat blueberries in my little library with green shelves (I refer to this time as Blueberry O’Clock), and then again before bedtime.

Eventually, with all that beauty leading my imagination, I’m able to reach toward the pictures I want to create.

As I was thinking about this the other day, Hebrews 12:2 came to mind. It says, “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

For the joy set before Him … Have you ever thought about that part? His joy was to rescue and redeem us. The cross was His messy sketch, full of emotion. It didn’t look like it could be worth anything. His followers must have thought they were witnessing the end of His ministry. But because of the joy set before Him—His good pleasure to save us—the cross became the means to great and astonishing beauty.

And as we fix our eyes on Him, His goodness begins to redeem the messiness of our lives too.

Blessings to you today as you remember that it was and is His joy to save you.

~Amy