The Outpouring Part II: Cadmium Red

The Outpouring, 2024

Oil underpainting (art in progress)

15" x 30"

Like some of my recent works, the inspiration for the The Outpouring came from a vision. However, this time the vision was not my own… well, not at first. In my previous post, “The Outpouring Begins,” I shared with you how God used a verse from Isaiah to prompt me to join Him and create something totally new. While this verse was the invitation, you may be surprised to find out that it was not actually what inspired the subject.

I emptied my mind and tried to make room for what God would show me. “What was this new thing to be?” I wondered as I began to wander through my thoughts, sifting for ideas. “Something new… something significant… something about what God is doing… hummm. I guess I better get comfy. That’s a tall order, we might be here for a minute, Angela.” But much to my surprise, it wasn’t long before an idea rushed to the surface. This particular inspiration popped out of the “to paint later” rolodex of my brain. I had tucked the picture away, there, because it was just too hard. Both too hard to paint and too hard to understand. The colors were unnatural and the subject was very surreal. I remember thinking to myself, “wow that’s a beautiful scene but it’s just too crazy. I’m not a Surrealist painter anyways… but if I ever were… nope, too much of a departure from my normal style. And besides no one would understand it. I don’t even fully understand it! But oh man, is it powerful!” So in the folder it went.

A while back, my Pastor shared a vision that God had revealed to him. He described a scene where God was raining down “gifts” from the heavens. These gifts were in the form of objects, things that people would use to fulfill callings and bring glory to God. I closed my eyes as I listened, hoping to catch a little glimpse. There in the darkness  an image began to form. It was a surreal landscape - rolling hills converged into a valley and massive clouds hovered above them and covered the sky. I say “surreal” because I truly had the sense that this place was not so much a geographic location but a view of somewhere in the Spiritual Realm. The colors, too, were all wrong for somewhere in the natural world. As Pastor Dan continued, the rain began to fall in my minds-eye but the objects in my envisioning transformed into something else. The shower of objects became a shower of rain that was full of light. Luminous drops hit the ground. One here… two there… then, in a moment, the shower of light became an inescapable downpour!

I sat on the edge of my bed and tried to remember all that Pastor Dan had said and all  that I had seen. “Ok, Lord, I remember the gist of it - how it felt, the gently swooping rolling hills, the powerful clouds, and of course the rain… but what were those colors again? They were strange, otherworldly, but how did they go?” A blank 15” x 30” canvas sat propped up on my easel, staring back at me. “Ok, all set up and ready to rock, Lord!” And then… blank. I closed my eyes, squinting and straining in my spirit to see a hint of what the final colors should look like. “Nothing. I got nothing, Lord.” With a big sigh I opened my eyes back up. “How am I supposed to paint what I can’t see? I’m working with oils here, Lord. How am I supposed to plan my color layers when I don’t know what I’m working up to?!” I could see enough of the forms - the landscape, the overall composition but the only thing I could seem to recall of the colors was that they were weird. Then, boom - RED! Bright, blinging, Cadmium Red flooded my vision. And not just a hint or an accent of Cad Red but the ENTIRE scene was ALL Cad Red! 

“Well, that can’t be right,” I thought to myself. “I better push that one to the side and pray until God shows me something.” I once again closed my eyes and began to pray. Fortunately I was seated on my bed because the next thing I knew, I was falling backwards! Startled, I caught myself with a sharp inhale, “HEEEEEEE!” Tucker and Dale (my cats) who had also been keeping me company, jolted off their blanket, eyes wide, staring at me like: “what the heck was that, human?!” Once again, the scene filled the canvas and it was entirely red. “Well, this is getting us nowhere fast. And what on earth was that?!” Bewildered I conceded, “I’ve gotta get something down today I guess I can at least use red to block in where everything is going to live while I wait for God to show me the finished colors.”   

It felt satisfying to get some kind of paint onto the bare canvas, even if it wasn’t the “right color.” I had no idea how I was supposed to layer on top of my red under-painting not because red under-paintings are unheard of, any color can be used to do an underpainting, but because I still couldn’t see where I was going! I decided to be proactive about the situation and prepped a second canvas of the same dimensions, with a similar rendering, but with less red. “Ok, maybe less red is the answer. This feels better. I will use the super red one as a test canvas to practice different color combinations on. Perhaps actually seeing them in real-life will trigger something. This way I have a back-up in case all else fails.” I decided to call it a day and rolled open the door of my studio, emerging to wash my brushes. Just then Grandma was passing by and caught a glimpse, “I just don’t understand that,” she commented. She shot me a glance and shook her head as if to say, “oh boy, Angela’s finally lost it and become one of those ‘crazy artists.’” “Oh Grandma, it’s an underpainting!” I declared loudly in a happy confident voice. But in my heart I was totally in agreement with her thinking, “it’s okay, Grandma, I don’t understand it either.”

(red underpainting 2 - "less red")

At many points in this painting I didn’t understand how the colors were going to work out or how the next layer was goings to interact with the paint I had just laid down. I hoped they would all play nice and come together beautifully in some sort of color theory magic but, truth be told, I couldn’t say for certain. It was in these moments that I could almost hear the Lord whisper, “do you trust Me?” I feel like the process of this painting is such a beautiful allegory for life. God wants to take us into the new - new heights, new places, and completely new things, wonderful things that we can’t even imagine! We are unable to imagine them because we have no frame of reference. We have no way to see where we are going because we have yet to go there! This is where the choice comes in. This is where the trust comes in. Will we choose to follow the Lord when we can’t see where we are going? Will you follow Him if all that is revealed to you is the first step? Will you take that step even if it seems downright strange? How about when it makes us seem downright strange to other people? Will we trust the Lord when the step He gives us is Cadmium Red?

This painting is far from over and so is this story! Will I go with the back-up canvas? Will I tuck this idea back into the “to paint later” file and go with tried and true? Or will I take the Cadmium Red road? Join me next time to find out.