Trust and Actions (Mixed Media Digital Art)
Digital art is an emerging art form in which traditional painting techniques such as acrylics, oils, pastels, impasto, watercolor; airbrushing, inks, charcoal, pens and pencils are applied by means of a computer and software. I mainly work with Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop.The creative process in traditional and digital painting is more or less the same. My images all start with an inspiration or idea, which is mostly loosely sketched with pencil on scratch paper. It is then conceptualized by digitally merging various mediums such as paint textures, sketches, outlines, photographs, etc. using different layers.
To create Trust and Actions I first took a series of selfies. I chose different parts of a red gypsy-style skirt to get the rapid twirling movement I desired. It symbolizes the busyness of “doing”. There are two Shabbat candles to the right. They stand for “entering into rest”—resting and trusting in what G-d has done for us. The hands are up in praise mode to further show worship, praise and prayer—the complete opposite of doing work. Yet, the entire body is in balance. The face was constructed from different facial parts to construct a new unknown radiant countenance that emanates inner peace. The background is a mixture of various colorful strokes. It is dark because Shabbat and rest begin after preparation and just before sunset.
Trust and Actions is about the balance of trusting G-d to be justified by faith but also that faith without actions is useless. In other words: “Just as the body without a spirit is dead, so too trust/faith without actions is dead.”
The Scripture is full of examples of this concept. It talks about “that even Avraham avinu was declared righteous because of what he did (his actions/work) when he was willing to obey God, even if it meant offering his son Yitz’chak to die on the altar? You see, he was trusting God so much that he was willing to do whatever God told him to; his trust was made complete, and the passage of the Tanakh was fulfilled which says, “Avraham had trust/faith in God, and it was credited to his account as righteousness.” He was even called God’s friend. You see that a person is declared righteous because of actions and not because of faith alone. Hebrew 11 is full of examples of people having faith and actively put that faith to action. Among many they include: Hevel (Abel), Hanokh (Enoch), Noach (Noah), Yitz’chak (Isaac), Ya’akov (Jacob), Yosef (Joseph) Moshe (Moses), Rachav (Rahab), Gid’on (Gideon), Barak, Shimshon, Yiftach, David, and Sh’mu’el.