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Stained Glass Lovers

JULY 1, 2008
Final art
It's a common occurrence; go on vacation and get calls for work.  Not just calls but good calls.  Time, a long time client seems to be the most common vacation call.

Years ago I arrived at Eagles Mere, PA to start a week long vacation.  I turned around and left without unpacking for a cover.  I've also missed Time calls while out of town.

I have learned to bring supplies with me and try to accommodate my clients while chilling out. 

Some may ask my I would not just say "I'm not available".
I actually can have a better time knowing I'm plugged in and needed.  It's soothes a deep, career-long insecurity.  Maybe one day I'll get over it.

This year's call was from Time and it sounded like it was a job I could start in the Vineyard and finish at home. 

The assignment was to paint a stained glass window of a couple either in an embrace or more and a spot of a book in a window.

The article, out this week, is about a few Christian groups/churches that advocate intimacy plus frequency for married couples. 
From the article:

" Genesis, chapter 2 verse 24, says a man "shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh." But how liberally to define cleave? That was the very special Bible query the Rev. Stacy Spencer and his wife Rhonda took up last month with 252 married people at their New Direction Christian Church in Memphis, Tenn. And the Spencers' answer was ... encouraging. Does frequent sex have a place in marriage? Yep. Oral sex? Read the Song of Solomon 2: 3 for assurance. How about role-playing? One participant expressed a yearning to see her husband dressed as a police officer. The Good Book offers no specifics on that, so Stacy Spencer allowed that it was up to the woman, "as long as you're not lusting after a particular officer. Jesus talked about spiritual adultery, and that could be spiritual adultery. But if it's just a generic cop, go for it."

Superior sex can be difficult for some couples to discuss with each other, let alone with their pastor. But having taken on almost every other aspect of their congregants' lives, churches oriented toward young adults and Gen Xers have begun promoting not just better sex, but more of it. Well, not just promoting it but penciling it in. When New Direction launched its "40 Nights of Grrreat Sex" program, the Spencers gave participants daily planners. A typical week is marked "Sun: Worship together"; "Mon: Give your wife a full body massage"; "Tues: Quickie in any room besides the bedroom"; "Wed: Pleasure your partner"; "Thurs: Read 1 Corinthians 7--How can I please you more?"; and so on.
New Direction is not the only church promoting a frequent-sex regimen. In February, Paul Wirth, pastor of the Relevant Church in Tampa, Fla., issued what he called "The 30-Day Sex Challenge." The program featured an extensive questionnaire, a Bible verse a day and the assumption that participants would engage in some kind of sex each night."



Doing this job on Martha's Vineyard required me to go to Chilmark library and do some sketches.  I was sent some reference of couples  and when downloading them, it looked like I was a perverted New Yorker downloading racy photos while on vacation.  I hunched over the laptop probably drawing even more attention to myself.  I imagined the embarrassment of being sent out of the building, surely making it to the local paper.

My sketch was good I thought but there were some questions coming back.  Not as smooth as I had hoped.  Addressing those comments, I came in closer with another couple and I think it was a better read and less like an Abercrombie & Fitch ad.

In the end my revised sketch was approved and at home I did the art and spot very quickly.  <a href="http://www.drawger.com/tonka/index.php?section=comments&article_id=3806" target="_blank">I had done this kind of thing before for Time so how to do it was not difficult.</a>
I will tell you that when I finished my sketches that day in the library, we headed off to Menemsha and the Dock  and I ate a dozen oysters on the half-shell. 
A quick sketch of a young couple. Perhaps being in the library made me put underwear on them.
Approved!
close up
Closer. The trick of doing stained glass is a breeze and it means the drawing an painting can be imperfect, that a marker can be used to draw the line around the pieces of class, and a small shot of lead at the joints makes it look real. Also, making the glass color shift slightly and change texture add to the trick.
Now the book was SOOO easy. I doodle books every day while on the phone. I like the way they look open and doing this piece was fun. The type was not.
Final art
Closer
Closer
the end
© 2024 Tim O'Brien