Click on Add to cart button below shopping cart.

Matthew 5:14-16 (ANIV)
[Jesus said] 14 “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

DRAWING NOTES:

TIME OF DAY:
Night.

LIGHTING NOTES:
The oil lamp on the table provides the primary source of light in this scene.
A secondary source of light is from the inside of the city on the hill.

CHARACTERS PRESENT:
An unnamed young man, placing a bowl over an oil lamp.

As an illustration of what not to do, the young man in this scene is about to place a ceramic bowl over the oil lamp! However, he is looking up at the city on the hill, and having second thoughts about the bowl!

I wanted to draw some more dramatic lighting effects in my cartoons, and I am pleased with the lamp light which is casting strong shadows of the young man onto the stone wall behind him in this picture.

Here’s the scene without the figure, table & lamp in the foreground.

Matthew 05 – Parable of lamp on stand – Lamp and city – Background

Click on the colour bar below to view/buy this Background:
Background of Matthew 05 – Parable of lamp on stand – Lamp and city

I did a bit of research about 1st century ceramics and found a good website with some wonderful examples on it. The plates & oil lamp I have illustrated are inspired by photographs from this site: The US Library of Congress, The exhibition – Scrolls From the Dead Sea: The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Scholarship.
[Source: https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/scrolls/art2.html]

“Standing on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, you can look east and see a flat-topped mountain rising dramatically above the water. In the time of Jesus, the city of Hippos crowned that hill, gleaming and visible for miles in every direction. It may even be the city Jesus had in mind in the Sermon on the Mount when he told his followers: “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14).”
[Source: https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-artifacts/artifacts-and-the-bible/unprecedented-discoveries-christian-baptism-found-shore-of-galilee]