Spiritual Growth through Art

A few weeks ago, I posted two drawings—one of a rat and the other of a hawk. The drawings were the beginning of my response to a distressing scene I’d witnessed: a hawk carrying away a struggling rat. You can read more about this backstory in my earlier post here.

The experience and the drawing led to an art journal spread in which I attempted to work through a spiritual question which has haunted me for a long time—the death of animals. This turned out to be a process of spiritual growth through art.

Here’s the finished spread (except that after I took this photo I added a shadow under the rat).

The text says “4 Nov., 2025  For the rat, the last chapter of her life on earth and the beginning of whatever comes next. For the hawk, a chance to live another day. And for me, a challenge and an invitation to grow in faith.”

There is a lot of thinking and feeling and praying behind this text. Initially, my thought was to record quite a bit of that thinking—all the ins and outs, all the questions and non-answers, all the frustration and pain, my love for the rat and sympathy for both, my understanding that understanding is beyond me. Yet, I was reluctant to start the spread.

Finally, everything boiled down to this little bit of text. It represents where I am now in my reaction to this event, just one of the millions which happen every day. Once that happened, the art of the spread flowed.

I’m sorry I didn’t capture a photo of the full spread at its first stage. I simply filled the space with collage images of wild places, then set the drawings (torn from their pages) into the scene. Here’s what the hawk side looked like.

And here’s what the whole spread looked like with just the initial collage and the margins of the drawings painted to blend into the background.

Now the challenge was to make it work as an integrated piece. I knew I’d need places for my text and the small pale piece in the middle needed a reason for being there. Also, I had a small landscape image that I’d like to include.

My first step was to lighten an area as a possible background for the text. I used a coat of thinned white gesso on the left side of the piece and, as it turned out, the gesso also softened the harsh edge of the collage piece above and to the left of the hawk. I liked the division of the two pieces—the hawk side and the rat side—but I thought it was too strong. The gesso addressed that problem, but in the main gesso area, I thought I needed it stronger in some places than in others, so added more.

I added my little landscape image and framed it with white Neocolor II water-soluble crayon and a bit of white line work. At that point, I had homes for my text bits and added them.

By the way, an alternative to adding the gesso to lighten the background in preparation for text with a black pen could have been text with a white pen over the original darker background. But I haven’t found a good, opaque fine-tipped pen, so I opted for the gesso.

I’m glad I did, not just because of the text, but also because the lightness helped separate the spread into the rat and hawk sections.

The final steps were to add the glow coming through the trees behind our rat, add a bit of collage beneath her, and neaten up the border.

I’m happy with the spread. It’s served its purpose in helping me confront something distressing to me, and I think it’s treated both the rat and the hawk with wympathy. I hope you like it too.

P.S. the function of the pale collage piece towards the center turned out to be grounding the small, framed landscape image. Serendipity!

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