The Faithful Friends Collection

Hello, friends! I have a brand new art collection to share with you!

 

 

The Faithful Friends Collection was inspired by the famous friendships of the Inklings Literary Society, but expands outward to the friendship our Lord and Savior offers us in His lovingkindness – which in the end is what the Inklings were all about anyway.

 

The Inklings had many members over the years, but its mainstays were CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Charles Williams, Owen Barfield, Lewis’s brother Warnie, and Tolkien’s son Christopher. These men had deep affection for each other, and spent many nights discussing theology, literature, history, and Christian narrative in the oxford pub The Eagle and Child (also known as The Bird and Baby). During these meetings, many works were read aloud and then critiqued, including Out of the Silent Planet, The Great Divorce, All Hallows Eve (Charles Williams), The Splendid Century (Warnie Lewis), and The Lord of the Rings.

 

The bond that Tolkien and Lewis had for each other was unmatched: Lewis often cited Tolkien as one of the major influences in his conversion to Christianity, and Tolkien said of Lewis: “The unpayable debt that I owe him was not ‘influence’ as it is ordinarily understood, but sheer encouragement. He was for long my only audience. Only from him did I ever get the idea that my ‘stuff’ could be more than a private hobby. But for his interest and unceasing eagerness for more I should never have brought The Lord of the Rings to a conclusion.” 

 

It can certainly be surmised that without the Inklings, many of these great, enduring works of fiction and non-fiction would never have been. Can you imagine a world where CS Lewis wasn’t Christian, a world where his apologetic works were never written? Can you imagine a world without The Lord of the Rings? These men made an incredible mark on the world, but it all started in the mark they made on each other. To quote Lewis: “What I owe them all is incalculable.”

 

All of my new paintings are available as prints in three sizes: 5×7, 8.5×11, and 13×19.

 

In addition to the new art prints, I will also be releasing four new books in my  Classic Art Collection. This is a collection of classic novels with classical paintings as the cover art. The collection includes these titles: Summer (new), The Scarlet Letter (new), Wuthering Heights (new), The Well at the World’s End (new), Pride and Prejudice, A Christmas Carol, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Anne of Green Gables, The Great Gatsby, and The Age of Innocence. These books can be purchased both in my Sweet Sequels bookshop AND my Halls of the Imagination Print Shop. When purchasing from HOTI, you will receive a free 5×7 print of the painting on the cover art of the book.

 

I also will be releasing a brand new product in my Classic Art Collection – Art Studies. These studies each cover one artist, and include a short biographical note about the artist and their most famous/beautiful paintings (in full color) with the title and date painted. I will be adding more to this series, but to begin I have art studies for: William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Vincent van Gogh, John Constable, Evelyn de Morgan, and Albert Bierstadt. These simple art studies are a great way to incorporate classic art into your homeschool curriculum.