Women of Holy Week

Last year I worked on a project with the fabulous Paula Gooder to illustrate her nine short stories entitled ‘Women of Holy Week’. The resulting book was hugley popular last Lent, and I suspect it will be again this year, so it’s absolutely not too late to get hold of copies and use them in your church or in your personal devotions, or as a gift for friends. It’s wonderfully readable, and includes ideas for reflection as well as historical / scriptural details drawn from Paula’s scholarly wisdom that really enrich the narrative.

Buy the book here (links to Church House Publishing)

If you would like to use the images alongside the book in worship or Lent groups etc, you can download them from my book illustrations page. There are nine individual paintings, and one large composite image, to be ‘read’ in a spiral direction starting at the top left hand corner, following the order that the stories appear in Paula’s book. Because the stories are all interwoven with each other, so are the paintings – you can enjoy them separately or together.

NB if you don’t have the means to do high quality colour printing you may find projecting the images more satisfying.

Women of Holy Week

As we prepare to enter Holy Week, I wanted to post something about the wonderful collection of stories by Paula Gooder, which explore the events of Holy Week and Easter through the eyes of nine of the women. It was my absolute joy and privilege to provide the artwork for the book.
You can buy the book directly from Church House Publishing (and from other online and high street bookshops) and you can also download the pictures (for a limited time only) so you can use them in your own personal reflections or in Church over Holy Week and beyond.

Dark is the night

A hymn for Passiontide to Easter Eve 2020, as a contribution to ‘words for difficult times’.
(Tune: Eventide, aka Abide with me)

Here is a video of the hymn, with me singing and my son recording and producing it:

And the text for those using screen readers:

Dark is the night, the passing hours are long,
Lone voices whisper sorrow’s silent song,
Each faltering prayer will fear it’s made in vain,
When will we sing the world to life again?

Dark is the night; not all are blessed with sleep.
Some wake and work, and some must watch and weep:
Angels disguised, they tend a world in pain,
Off’ring the hope that there’ll be life again.

Dark is the night, the silent hours are slow,
Heav’n’s tears anoint the suffering earth below,
Blessing with dew the secret springing grain,
Pledge that the world will soon know life again.

Passiontide and Holy Week in pictures

This post is all pictures. I’ve put all of my pictures that possibly pertain to Passiontide and Holy Week here in one place so that if you’re looking for images to use in reflective material for yourself or for your dispersed congregation you can just help yourself. Sorry the digital quality isn’t great for all of them and some are a bit blurry.

The woman with the ointment
Jesus washes his friends’ feet
Peter went out and wept bitterly
Crucifixion
The women of Jerusalem
Easter morning
Resurrection breakfast on the beach 1
Resurrection breakfast on the beach 2
Mary hugging Jesus after the resurrection when he comes downstairs from seeing the disciples in the upper room.

Mothering Sunday – art

Here are some of the paintings I’ve done that might possibly be useful for Mothering Sunday, if you half shut your eyes. Help yourself if you like them.

Mary hugging Jesus after the resurrection when he comes downstairs from seeing the disciples in the upper room.
It’s a hug. It could be the holy family, or the Trinity, or just a hug.
Ruth and Naomi
This one’s called ‘the one with the crumby dog’ and features the woman with the sick child who answered back. You go, mamma bear!
This is Mary and Joseph, just after Joseph wakes up from the dream in which the angel tells him they have to leave everything and run to Egypt.
Another Holy Innocents picture – hiding from the soldiers
If you really look you can see the four women who each played a vital part in saving the baby Moses. But you might not find them because women’s roles in salvation history aren’t always celebrated.
Mary and Elizabeth, both discovering that mothering is best done in solidarity rather than alone.
From my line drawing Stations of the Cross – Mary and John are made into a new family