I have always loved drawing and painting and have been creating art for as long as I can remember. It brings me joy to create new works of art and so I try to make a little time for doing that. My earliest works were cartoons and eventually I started doing realistic drawings of people, including some of the Lord Jesus. I think I was about 10 years old when I drew my first portrait of Jesus.
The Lord blessed me with the desire and with a bit of skill in that area and it has always been a hobby more than anything else. The only noteable exception was when I was young I owned a small sign painting company and did that as well as wall murals and paintings. For the most part it was always for my own enjoyment.

Several years ago, as some of you know, I began having some really powerful encounters with the things of Heaven and the spiritual realm. There were visitations from the Lord and from angels as well. Sometimes they were quite overwhelming to say the least! I wrote about many of these encounters, not for the sake of amusement but I try in all the things I share in this regard to also tell the lesson I learned or the point of the visitation. It was not just an “encounter” it was a revelation or an instruction or even a correction at times. Truly powerful encounters of God and I tried very hard to share some of these with the purpose very much in mind.
I would often create posts talking about these things, sharing little pieces of encouragement etc.. Many times I would do Google searches trying to find pictures or paintings or drawings of angels that in some small way approximated what I had encountered. If I had an ancounter with a large fierce looking angel who carried the glory of God, I would try to find a picture like that to use in my post.

I soon learned it was next to impossible to find what I was looking for. I would search and find very cartoonish looking angels or “angels” that looked demonic or angels that had very carnal looking appearances. There were some that were close… more “sci-fi” looking, but still not conveying what I felt was needed. I especially had trouble when I looked for powerful looking black angel pictures because it seemed as though about half of my encounters were with non-white angels. ( I have many who challenged me on this but it is what it is.)
I decided to create the images I needed for my posts and blogs. I enjoyed doing it and was able to bring a realism to angel images that in some was approximated what I had experienced. Not entirely mind you, but at least closer than what I had previously found.

Many of the pieces I have done are an attempt to show the angels from actual encounters I have had. Such as the 2 angels Healing and Breakthrough that sat with my wife Gordana on the flight home from Manila to Dulles airport. I was able to come pretty close to their appearances in the art. There were others as well…an angel who gave me a sword…another who wrestled with me in the Virgin Islands and another whose presence was so overwhelming I could not handle it. So, I was happy to have the art to go with the testimonies.
Fast forward to spending a week with friends in ministry whose opinion I greatly respect. They suggested to me that I not keep the art for posts alone but that I make it available for those who may be interested or inspired by it. I knew when it was suggested that it was the Lord. I had already given several posters to parents whose children hung them in their bedrooms and I was told it gave them peace having a reminder that God’s angels were there watching over them. I had several other testimonies as well so I decided to do it.

I pray my art inspires you or encourages you in some way.
Blessings!
Mike