THE OH OF ART!            DFO 325A        1/75

         1. DEAR ARTISTS: GREETINGS IN JESUS' PRECIOUS NAME! YOUR RECENT ARTWORK IS BEAUTIFUL as usual, & certainly makes our Letters more INTERESTING to children & grown-ups alike. I'm glad you've put lots of CONTRAST on the covers to make them stand out for street sales.
         2. NORMALLY, FOR THE BLACK-&-WHITE SKETCHES I LIKE SHADING & CONTRAST TO MAKE THEM STAND OUT. Although simple line drawings are sufficient to get the idea, perhaps we could use a little more gray shading for certain areas in order to give a little more variety in a sort of THREE-COLOUR EFFECT, BLACK, WHITE & various shades of GRAY in between, like a TV picture or a black-&-white movie.
         3. COULD YOU GO OVER SOME OF THE CHILDREN'S LETTERS which would make good colouring books & get inspired to give them a few MORE PICTURES to colour for our new precious primary prophets?
         4. YOUR PICTURES REALLY DO INSPIRE ME! They're so in the Spirit & so Spirit-led of the Lord that I know they're INSPIRING MILLIONS of others also, thank the Lord! Your pictures are gonna make our coming books & pubs the most BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED in the World!
         5. IT'S REALLY THE ILLUSTRATIONS THAT BRING A BOOK TO LIFE & give life to the dead pages & fascinate us like children, arousing our CURIOSITY to want to know more & inspiring our lazy spirits to read the text to find out more of what it's all about & to understand the pictures better.
         6. SO I'M CONVINCED YOUR PRICELESS ILLUSTRATIONS ARE GOING TO BE USED AS MUCH AS MY WORDS to tell the story & no doubt interest more people to obtain our literature & to read the text just to find out what those pictures are all about! I am convinced people will be attracted more to READ a well-illustrated text, & will never forget the pictures even if they forget the words. It's a known fact that we remember about 80% of what we SEE, but only about 40% of what we HEAR, & God only knows how little we remember of what we READ! So may God really inspire you to PORTRAY THE MESSAGE by pen, more & more.
         7. I AM REALLY DEPENDING ON YOU ARTISTS, & I believe that perhaps the whole future of our ministry & its effectiveness & outreach will depend in a large part on how well you illustrate the Message, perhaps even after people have forgotten how to read!
         8. WHO KNOWS?--MAYBE SOME DAY THE WORLD WILL ONLY HAVE YOUR PICTURES TO GO BY! They may even ban the text or throw it away, but they'll want to keep those beautiful pictures & they will always hear the Message long after you & I are gone!
         9. MOST OF US STILL CARRY IN OUR MEMORIES THOSE VIVID ILLUSTRATIONS VIEWED AS A CHILD which first brought those thrilling stories to LIFE for us on Mother or Father's knee, or even flat on the floor before we could ever read the text! Many of our original conceptions of the Bible stories still live vividly in our memories as portrayed by the Sunday School picture calendars or the old illustrated Bibles with the artists' classics.
         10. IN FACT, THE ONLY RECORD WE HAVE OF SOME ANCIENT PERISHED CIVILISATIONS IS THEIR PICTORIAL HISTORY on some of their carved monuments. Many a masterpiece of art has lived on long after its originator & his culture were gone. Many of the art works of even the ancient masterpieces of literature have long outlived their original texts & still live on in the memories of Man while their authors are long forgotten.
         11. SO YOU ARTISTS ARE CARVING A HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION, whose author may some day be forgotten along with you, but whose ideas will live on until Eternity in the messages you have made by HAND! Praise God? TTL! So may God help you to be impressed with the importance of your task & help you to speed the production of these priceless illustrations from your precious pens! I trust the Lord will truly inspire you in your labours with that same supernatural power with which He inspires me in the visions & the Words that He gives.
         12. NEARLY EVERY IDEA, REVELATION, MESSAGE OR LETTER THAT THE LORD HAS GIVEN ME HAS FIRST COME IN PICTURES which the Lord then described to me, or to which He added the Words or gave me the wisdom to understand & explain & interpret. So if pictures envisioning the truth of God's Words are a vital & essential part of God's Message & means of revelation, as were the simple word pictures that even Jesus & many of God's Prophets used to portray their thoughts, certainly pictures in which to pass these on to others as best we can should be an indispensable part of our own ministry in getting out the Message as clearly & vividly & unforgettably as we can! Amen?
         13. MAY HE GUIDE YOUR PEN LIKE SPIRIT-WRITING POSSESSED OF THE SPIRIT OF GOD to catch the vision of what He is trying to show the World & put it on paper for them ALL to see in a way they will clearly understand, & arouse such compelling interest as to never forget! As He commanded one Prophet, "WRITE the vision, & make it PLAIN upon TABLES, that he may RUN that READETH it!"--Hab.2:2. Hallelujah!
         14. SO MAYBE THIS WILL INSPIRE ALL OF OUR ARTISTS TO REALISE HOW IMPORTANT THEIR WORK IS in furthering the Work & Words of God. The Lord has certainly emphasised it & Abrahim couldn't have been any more specific in his commandments in "Chinese Spirits" about having more PICTURES! (See No.273)
         15. I'M SURE YOUR PICTURES HAVE MANY TIMES BEEN A GREAT HELP IN ATTRACTING YOUNG PEOPLE TO TAKE THE LITERATURE & to help them visualise the Message so that they were inspired to follow it. So you shall surely share a great portion in the rewards that shall be given in the Hereafter for a job well done which has reaped much fruit! It will surely reap millions more whose fellowship we shall enjoy in God's Family, both now & forevermore, & for which both you & they will be eternally thankful & God everlastingly grateful!
         16. GOD'S WHOLE CREATION IS A WORK OF ART & CONTINUALLY PORTRAYS HIS MESSAGE TO ALL OF US, "Because that which may be known of God is MANIFEST in them, for God hath SHOWED it unto them! For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the World are clearly SEEN, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power & Godhead, so that they are without excuse!"--Romans 1:19-20. Hallelujah! Not only the Bible but God's whole Creation is full of illustrations of His truths, pictures which tell the story, portraits which portray the truth!
         17. PERHAPS IN CLOSING THIS EXTREMELY SERIOUS SUBJECT I MIGHT CHEER YOU WITH A LITTLE SMILE & perhaps even a hearty laugh with a little joke I heard recently about religious art: A little child was looking at a picture of Jesus when a skeptic viewing his fascination sneered: "THAT'S not REALLY Jesus!--That's only some ARTIST'S CONCEPTION of Him!" "Well," said the little child, "that's funny, because it sure DOES LOOK like Jesus!"--Which was all that was necessary as far as the little one was concerned!--And he got the point & it satisfied his childish mind & heart that it was enough LIKE Him to suit HIM & his OWN childlike conception of Jesus!
         18. SO IF SOMETIMES YOU'RE NOT COMPLETELY SATISFIED THAT OUR ART IS EXACTLY LIKE THE REAL THING & perhaps only a poor representation, at least the people will get the point: It LOOKS like it!--And that's all it has to do, the best you can to make it look as nearly like it as humanly possible in these frail vessels of clay so that folks will at least get the general idea as nearly as possible.
         19. DON'T EVER GET DISCOURAGED THAT IT'S NOT PERFECT, for neither are YOU nor I, although we TOO are supposed to be illustrations of God & His Love! We just do the best we can by His help, & that's all that He asks & that's all anyone should expect.
         20. SO KEEP'M ROLLING no matter how imperfect they may be, & let's just hope that it'll LOOK like Jesus even if it's not perfect or exactly right as we might like it to be. At least they'll get the picture & the point if you'll try to portray it as best you can with God's help, which is the same way we all try to LIVE it.--And we're thankful for you & the tremendous amount of hard work you're all doing to make these impossible dreams come true & be seen by the mind of Man! Hallelujah! Keep up the good work! ILY!--Your Ol' Picture--Dad.