Last weekend I had the treat of attending my 5th year of David’s Tent worship festival. There were over 70 artists - young and old, professionals and newbies, with a breadth of style and medium all gathered in a big blue tent in the middle of a field, in Wiston Estate West Sussex, to creatively praise their Maker.

David’s Tent is a 72 hour non-stop worship event where people gather from all around the world, across different denominations and church expressions to worship Jesus. Worship starts at 2pm on the Friday and continues until 2pm Monday, people come and go as they wish.

The Art Team and art space has been led for 8 years now by the wonderful Linette Penney-Gainham and her husband Keith, and grows year on year. There is a team of artists who serve at the event leading workshops and creating individual prophetic art for delegates in the prophetic art tent, as well as painting during the worship.
But the arts area in the big top is available for anyone to paint or create in their own way, whether they are professional artists or just wanting to have their first try at something. I served on the art team for 3 years but have taken a break these last 2 years to focus purely on painting and giving some unofficial support to those around me.

Here’s a little video showcasing the variety of art created this year.

I consider this festival my birthplace as an artist - 5 years ago I arrived, never having painted on a canvas before with lots of fear, lots of hang ups and lots of enthusiasm. Now I’m a professional, full time artist, leading workshops, exhibiting in galleries and painting prophetic art at conferences in front of thousands - God's breathed life into the little I brought to the table those years ago!
It’s only been 5 years, I’m really only just getting started and still have a LOT to learn, but when we dare to make ourselves vulnerable, and step into what God has designed us to do, in a safe place like DT, within the care of people like Linette, then God causes fruit to grow. David's Tent was the good soil that nurtured and nourished my little seed as it started on it's journey.

I find David’s Tent a uniquely encouraging creative environment and worshipful atmosphere where I can experiment and step beyond the norm. Whether that shows itself in expressive dance, massive floor paintings or, like this year, a combination of the two!

Often, in real life (outside of social media), we may come across just 1 or 2 prophetic artists (if that) and sometimes we can feel quite alone in it all. The life of a professional artist can be quite an isolated one. I hope that me sharing my experiences at DT will bring you some encouragement and bless you - this is real, an army of artists is rising up to bring glory to God, this is happening, God is on the move!

I had such an exciting day last Saturday at Kings Arms Church Bedford, teaching a room full of 24 grown ups how to play with paint, and partner with God in their creativity.

But, you know the comment that grabbed my attention the most, was from someone on the actual day, that took me by surprise. I can’t remember her exact words but she was basically expressing her appreciation that I would be willing to share my ‘secrets’ with everyone. She thanked me for my generosity in not keeping my art processes to myself! Isn’t that lovely?!

Should I be worried that people might try to copy my style, or might use my ideas to make better pictures than mine?

What I do is incredibly simple - I’ve taught most of it to children as young as 4, I’ve shared it with rooms of 150 people all in one go and it’s still been effective. My processes have come about through experimentation and play, through trial and error, but most of all through playing with paint and having fun.

I didn’t invent stencilling, or splatting paint, or building up layers, or using circles in ones work. Maybe if this was ‘it’ - if this was going to be my specific style for ever, then I’d feel a bit more protective and guarding of sharing it with people (I don’t know)...

BUT I’m just getting started! I have plans to go much deeper and further and crazier with my paint playing. In fact, I would be most disappointed if my work did stay the same from now on - I’m hungry to keep developing, to keep growing and learning.

What I’ve learnt has been in partnership and relationship with our awesome creator God, and is born out of grace and freedom, why would I want to keep that to myself?!

All I have, has been given by my good, good Father God, and I want to reflect his character, his generous nature to others.

If I can impart a sense of fun and playfulness in people’s creativity, if I can help to free people up to focus on enjoying the process rather than stressing over the results, if I can stir people to invite the Holy Spirit into their creative activity, then I feel the risk is definitely one worth taking.

At Easter I spent a week as the artist in residence at the Christian conference Spring Harvest #SH2019, Minehead (wk 1) and thought I'd share with you what I got up to. The theme this year was Prayer UNLIMITED: Unlimited – Access, Unlimited – Connection, Unlimited – Potential; Unlimited – Hope.
There were three main parts to my role. 1. to provide all age activities for the morning programme called the BIG START. 2. to lead an art workshop for the guests one afternoon and 3. to paint live in the evening celebration. I also had the opportunity of selling my art and merchandise in the bookshop.

The morning sessions were based around the theme of a School of Prayer “No rules, no limits!” The creative team leading this programme had to dress in school uniform – hence the pigtails! I based my activities around the idea of a graffiti wall and each morning added a new word. I'd learnt from the previous year to keep things super simple as there would be a large number of kids, about 10 minutes to do things and it was too loud to give any explanations alongside the songs, games and drama also happening. We used chalks, did handprints, created collage and sketched.

Each evening, next to the stage, I got to paint HUGE pictures, during the worship, the talk and the ministry time. Working so big and with limited time lent itself nicely to expressive, messy work. I barely used a brush or palette, I just threw the paint on the canvas roll and manipulated it with a shower squeegee and sponges.
There was a camera over my shoulder a lot of the time with a live feed to the large screens either side of the venue, with images of me painting interspersed with footage of the 3000+ audience and the band. I was having so much fun that I was mostly able to block this out of my mind and just get on with what I was doing.
I used the theme of each day as inspiration for what I painted and invited the Holy Spirit to partner with me as I worked – I felt that, as well as the pieces having a prophetic nature in their concept, there was also moments of prophetic action/movement that I felt God prompting me to do. For example I was led to paint with a feather at a point where people were responding to God (he whispered to me that he was meeting them with a particular gentleness in that space, and the feather represented this).
One of the evenings I felt God tell me he wanted my painting as an interactive/responsive piece, so I dialogued with the preacher and host about how to incorporate this into the programme. People were invited to put a thumbprint on my picture to represent their sons and daughters who they were interceding for. It was so moving to see 100+ queuing to engage with God through my art.

Each evening I left my paintings to dry over night, then in the morning I hung them on the bleachers. The images are available for guests (and anyone else) to purchase as poster prints in my Etsy shop. Click each picture below for the links to read the explanations for each piece.

It was a full on, tiring week that I thoroughly enjoyed and was a huge privilege to be a part of!