Angels And You.

 

Make Over Angel.  Before And After.  A Personal Angel Portrait of the wonderful Helen Ross, commissioned for her husband's birthday but then kept for herself.  Clever lady.  She is very yummy.  Oil on wood about 6"x 8"

www.antoniarolls.co.uk for my website

www.jesusonthetube.co.uk for the Jesus on the Tube painting, my most well known image. 

www.agracefuldeath.blogspot.com for the A Graceful Death exhibition, paintings from the end of life

Angels For You. 

I have been painting Angels for people recently and think that there is a future in this.  I have always wanted to link the Mundane with the Divine, and to remove the barrier between God and Us.  If we are to believe in God, we practice that old chestnut, Faith.  There are those who set themselves to deepen their Faith, which means that they continue to forge a link with God whatever may happen to test this link.  There are those who cannot conceive of this notion, Faith, and find themselves looking at it with frustration.  A frustration because they wish that they could have this thing that seems so irritatingly illogical; a frustration because it is so illogical and those that have it so irritatingly silly; a frustration because it simply gets in the way of  sound and rational intellectual progress.
 
Much of my Religious Work has been about making God as real and familiar as a cup of tea.  My Virgin Mary's are always either having or just had cups of tea.  The "Virgin And Child Waving With A Cup Of Tea" for example.  I have painted Jesus and John the Baptist Playing Their Gameboys too.  I have painted a Practice Annunciation where the Angel Gabriel has to practice Announcing to teenage girls, because he has to get it right.  And what 13 year old girl is going to say, on being told by a glowing man in her room that she is going to have a baby, "Fine.  OK by me.  Bring it on.  Fab.  Thanks."  She is more likely (if it is bungled) to run away screaming, "There's a man in my room with wings and not standing on the floor says I'm going to have a baby whaaaa"

"Jesus and John the Baptist Playing With Their Gameboys." Jesus and John were cousins, and would have played together.  I like the idea of them being like any other boys, and playing with the things that were familiar to them.  Oil on wood, 4' x 2'.

Angel Gabriel on the left here is very unimpressed. He has been to practice his Announcing Technique on some local teenaged girls so that he can get it just right when he meets Mary. But he is met with blank incomprehension and total dismissal from two very normal and scathing 13 year old local girls.  He knows it is going to be a tough one, and he needs to try again.  He is very discouraged but will keep going.  Oil on wood, about 6"x 8".

 I think God has a fabulous sense of humour.  I think it is not possible to offend God, it is not possible to annoy God and it is not possible to make God want to give you a smack around the head to smarten you up.  God is bigger than all that, and most of all, God is not human.  And has no gender.  And while I am about it, I may plug my dear friend Nicola Slee's new book coming out in March, called "Seeking the Risen Christa"  about the feminine side of Christ.  I love Nichola's writing.  There was hope that my lovely portrait of our dear friend Rocking Rev Rachel Mann would be the front cover but it was thought too controversial by the publishers.  (Eh? Subject matter is not but the picture is?  See below)

 

Rev Rachel Mann, ordination portrait.  Wonderful woman.  Poet, Vicar, Heavy Metal Guru, Thinker and Rocker of Boats.  Oil on wood, about 3' x 2'.

Back to the Angels.

Angels are the most beautiful and comprehensible symbol of our spiritual lives.  We want them positive, lovely to look at, personal and wise.  We want them to Be There and to keep a permanent watch for our welfare.  We want them to know us.  We need to feel that they have never left us, and that though we can't see them, that all we have to do is call and they will turn their wonderful eyes to ours and lift us up so that we can do what we have to do.  The Angels I am painting at the moment are for those who ask for a Personal Angel to lift and love and care for us right now.  They are painted with love and insight, they are utterly individual and they represent the connection between the Divine and the Mundane. They make us feel so good.  They are nothing but good. See below for three examples.

An Angel to support the task of loving oneself.  For a lady who needs to feel loved and secure, and who is loving and giving herself.  Hence the hearts, and the border outlined in gold.  She loves purple and blues and is beautiful.

An Angel for a wise and spiritual lady, who loves nature and people.  She loves greens and has a crown on her head.  Sprigs of leaves symbolise her love of nature, and her angel looks out at her with a direct and understanding gaze.

An Angel for a very strong and wise lady, who feels buffeted by events both expected and unexpected.  this is symbolised with the purple ribbons flowing around her.  This lady has beautiful long blonde curled hair.  She loves blues and turquoise blues especially.

All these Angel paintings are 6"x 4" and are acrylic on canvas.  If you want one please email me.  I charge £65 for non portrait ones (like these three) and from £150 for the portrait ones (like the ones of Helen Ross at the top of this blog).  My email address is antonia.rolls1@btinternet.com.  All we need to do is talk on the phone or by email to get an idea of the Angel you want to have either sent to someone as a gift, or for yourself as a well deserved affirmation of your worth.

I have an Angel to do this weekend for someone who wants support and love, and is watching her three grown children do their best in the worlds they have chosen.  Her Angel will be in browns and greens, earth colours.  And one for a man who wants an Angel to help him to Fly Away in his life, to move on and be more free.  This I will do, and with pleasure.

And just to make a point about tea, here is that painting of the Virgin and Child Waving With A Cup Of Tea.  Acrylic on paper, 3"x 2".  Very small indeed.

Have a lovely Angelic day all of you.  With love.