Illustration Friday: Theater

Wow, it has been a long time since I have participated in Illustration Friday...but the IF topic this week is "Theater" and I had just the illustration for it - I called this piece "The Drama Queen". I did this illustration back in August of 2006 for the IF topic "Play" and it was just right for this week as well. I generally don't like to repeat an illustration, but since this was ages ago and very few people saw it, I thought it was OK to post it again :o)

Now that I am pursuing illustration/licensing full time, I plan to participate weekly in Illustration Friday again. I can say without a doubt that participating in IF and starting a blog way back in June of 2005 (which I initially did primarily for the purpose of participating in IF), was the very best thing I could have done to get back into illustration after a 10 year hiatus. The weekly prompts got my creativity flowing and my brain and hands working in sync again, and the comments, encouragements and inspiration from other illustrators was exactly what I needed to spur me on...

I'm looking forward to meeting more "new-to-me" illustrators, visiting again with old friends, and being inspired by wonderfully diverse artwork in this unique interactive creative community!

Now...back to this week's topic, "Theater" - one of the things I always try to do with the weekly IF topics is to find a Scripture that contains the topic word and then illustrate with that Scripture in mind. That's not what I did this week because of the repeated illustration, but I did look up "theater" at http://www.biblegateway.com/ and just loved these verses I found there from The Message Bible. I hope they bless and challenge you:

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"Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don't make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won't be applauding. When you do something for someone else, don't call attention to yourself. You've seen them in action, I'm sure—'playactors' I call them— treating prayer meeting and street corner alike as a stage, acting compassionate as long as someone is watching, playing to the crowds. They get applause, true, but that's all they get. When you help someone out, don't think about how it looks. Just do it—quietly and unobtrusively. That is the way your God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out."

Matthew 6:1-4 (The Message)

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