Most of the work for this piece is done in advance out of the view of your audience. I started off by creating an image of Christ. This has to be a stark contrast black and white image similar to the one at the left. The reason for that will become readily apparent in the next step.
Now that your image is created your next step is to prepare your canvas. I used a 16"x20" painter's canvas. The first step is to paint the canvas with a coat or two of opaque black acrylic paint and allow it to dry thoroughly.
While that is complete transfer your design to a piece of clear contact paper or frisket. I taped mine to a piece of foam core (taping the edges completely down so as to avoid curling.) and then sketched my design on the paper side of the contact. Once you have done indicate all the parts that will not be black and cut them out with an exacto knife. (In other words you want your contact paper to mask out all the parts that will remain black.
Once you have your mask cut, leave it taped to the foam board and peel the backing paper off the contact. This will leave your sticky side exposed. When you have everything peeled lay your dry canvas face down on the sticky contact paper and press it down thoroughly. Then trim around the edges until your canvas is free of the foam board. Your mask is now compete. (Please see my regrets below) Cover the entire piece with enough coats of Gesso to make the canvas appear to be a plain white canvas. You are now ready to do your presentation.
The idea behind this piece is to make the painting look like it is random and nothing, totally abstract and something even a monkey could do. Since I wanted this effect, I turned the canvas upside down on my easel to mislead the congregation. I also used somewhat unnatural colors rather than flesh tones.
My painting looked something like the piece on the left. I filled in all the areas of the face the colors I wanted them to be and then put some random colors over the masked areas to make it look even less like a face. While it really looked like I was being messy and haphazard, the piece was well planned and worked very well.
I painted the whole piece while we were singing our worship music.
When I began preaching, I told the congregation that the painting looked like nonsense, but it was really an evolutionary painting and that it would eventually become something that they could recognize. When we began to look at the idea that the universe is far too complex to have happened by accident and that so are we, I read John 1 and began to talk about the creator. Then I said, "It's kind of like this painting..." and went over to the canvas and uprighted it, slowly pulling pieces of my mask away, "...it looked all random and out of order, but iif you look deep enough, there is a design. It is too complex to have been done by accident..." until this haphazard mess became a picture of our Lord. I finished with a line from Carman's there is a God...If there's a design there's a designer, if there's a creation there's a creator and if there's a miracle there is a God.
The painting was very well received and the point was made. To God be the glory