075 - Chapter 75

(Illustration: examples of school artwork for the Kaleidoscope project)

By the end of 2011, I had composed, recorded and made videos of 48 Old Testament songs for children, all of which made up my ‘Kaleidoscope of Colours’ album, which I began work on in 2007.

The project contained songs about nearly every famous person in the Old Testament, and I included some of my favourite psalms too.

The very first chorus was written September 2007, as I read the story of Jacob, who had a dream about angels ascending and descending from heaven. He awoke having heard God’s voice, he had felt his presence in the place where he had lain, and he said:

“Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”

Genesis 28.16-17

And so I began writing . . .

“Surely God is in this place!

Surely God is in this place,

He was here and I knew it not!

House of God, heaven’s gate.

How awesome is this place,

It must never be forgot.”

SONG: Jacob’s dream

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_bb7jbehmg...

Each and every song from then on came thick and fast, and just like my previous songs, some ideas for songs came three and four at a time and I had to write quickly to get them down. (This I believe was God's doing not mine.) Each song seemed to fit a well-known nursery rhyme tune, or traditional folk tune which meant that children would be able to sing them immediately, in RE lessons, school assemblies or junior churches.

I just knew this was the start of a really big and exciting task in the years to come. But I began to ask myself, ‘How will I get every story told in a rhyme with accuracy? How will I even get every story to rhyme? How will I find the right tune to match for so many songs?

The answer was, one song at a time, one step at a time, rather like walking on water, trusting in God’s provision to keep me going. As I read each Bible story with an open mind, I found that I just ‘knew’ which nursery rhyme/ traditional tune to use!

It was a steep learning curve for me, especially when I completed the songs and attempted to do artwork, which was necessary to make videos of them all. But how would I actually find artwork for all 48 music videos. Art on the computer was all under copyright restrictions. I couldn’t see the way forward; it felt as if there was big mountain in my path, that I couldn’t get round or climb. I needed help as I couldn’t do it all myself. It would have added years onto the project.

My own first attempt at Adam and Eve on the computer art programme was horrendous. Frightful in fact. Just look at this video of Cain and Abel and you’ll see what I mean, as the artwork here was just as bad.

SONG: Cain and Abel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-_KFzHF5_E...

Some of it took me ages, but I was beginning to produce some decent artwork on computer.

SONG: Two red butterflies : Noah’s Ark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJS2Q2lSSfE...

I nearly gave up, it was so difficult, but I improved over time once I realised that I didn’t need use a ‘paintbrush’ programme, I could simply draw, scan and ‘paste’ onto a programme called Paint X. I got there in the end. As is shown here:-

SONG: The Crafty Serpent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huLs9YOFR9k...

I couldn’t possibly have done all the art for such a huge project myself. I shared my frustrations with a friend of mine called Viv, (I don’t know whether she remembers this at all) and she spurred me on saying, “Don’t doubt yourself Sheila, you can do it!”

So I really prayed about this and came up with the idea of inviting other artists to join in with the project, perhaps a few that I knew personally?

The Gosforth ‘Ark in the Park’ art group, Harry Lisgo and a young lad Brian, both from St John’s Kingston Park gave me some of their work. But I needed even more artists.

Some people say that prayer makes no difference to a situation! But I’ve found that time and time again when I pray ‘God’ coincidences happen!

I suddenly had a ‘light bulb’ moment! An answer.

‘What about offering this as a challenging art project for children to tackle?’ I asked myself. After all I had contact with all the schools where I did assemblies, and had an excellent relationship with the head teachers and staff there, and to my delight they all decided to take up the challenge too and insert the Kaleidoscope project into their art lessons and so, their children became video artists too.

Each school was given roughly five characters each, so as not to duplicate the characters. Then it was up to the children to listen first to the Bible story about them and also to my recording before committing their art ideas to paper.

The artwork they came up with was truly amazing, with work from children of all different ages, some as young as five-years old, and they all managed to collectively tell the story too. Their pictures were wonderful, so colourful and dramatic, all I had to do was to add words and scan their work! I later presented each successful artist, whose work was selected, with a certificate, and I thanked each school, and they received a copy of the finished CD and music books.

You can see a few examples of their work in the ‘Illustration section’, and also in these video links below, which show some of my favourite songs from the album, giving credit to the schools which provided the artwork.

Jacob’s Dream was by Jubilee Primary, Wallsend, here are other examples:

SONG: David and Goliath:- Jubilee Primary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2D6_7S-bIPs...

SONG: Abraham and Isaac: Battlehill Primary, Wallsend

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WizQ5659bcw...

SONG: Song of Ruth; Beacon Hill, Wallsend

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie86-pAdVzw...

SONG: Let him go Levite woman: Newton Hall Infants, Durham

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krk54yR2AJo...

SONG: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego: Chillingham Road Primary, (Reception)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgGOLWZrOdQ...

SONG: Mene Mene Tekel Parsin by friend Harry Lisgo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSexLzyfHFo...

SONG: King Solomon’s Judgement: Carville Primary Wallsend

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMkjafh6E3c...

SONG: If my people: Five of our grandchildren

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHH3v5ZuZE4...

My own grandchildren loved the music, and that was the litmus test for me. When Katie heard David and Goliath for the first time, she played it non-stop seventeen times, and when I asked what her favourite song was from these Bible songs, she replied, ‘Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin!” (not many children would give that answer these days!) Daniel as a toddler loved dancing to them, and Sarah would sing some to Jake at bed time, also a toddler then.

Andrew Ridgwick worked just as hard as I did, his amazing skill on piano and mixing was outstanding, he was so patient and he believed in the project too, which helped so much.

Stephen’s help again was also invaluable, he set these videos in place on the website,  www.sheilahamil.co.uk all in the right order, so anyone could access these new videos as well as the Art, Music, Drama already there too. All this would now be freely available to anyone who cared to use these resources right across the world.

No charge, no copyright, no permission required.

Freely you have received, freely give. Matthew 10.8

All this precise video work had become a real challenge for my eyes though, with focussing so intently on so very many computer pictures and lyrics. No wonder the following year I suffered from a severe bout of double vision for about twelve weeks, with nausea at first; but I came through with superb treatment for ‘6th nerve palsy’ at the eye department of the RVI, Newcastle.