Category: Mixing It Up

Year of St Joseph – Part 1

8/4/2021

Back in December 2020 Pope Francis proclaimed a Year of St Joseph (8 Dec 2020 – 8 Dec 2021) for the whole Catholic Church.
More information about it can be found here, and about prayer to St Joseph here.

Below are the first 3 images of St Joseph that I painted in the Year of St Joseph proper:

"St Joseph and the infant Jesus." The starting point for this image was the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 1, Verse 20; which was one of the prompts from the #Adventus202One art challenge during Advent 2020.
This image in not exactly of the moment described in Matthew's Gospel, but rather of a moment after Jesus' birth when St Joseph fell in love/accepted Jesus as his son for the 2nd or 3rd time.
Also the main inspiration for this image was the idea: if St Joseph had a beard before Jesus was born, how much of it would have been left after Jesus' toddler year (ie. pulling part of Joseph's beard out)?

"The Holy Innocents/The Flight into Egypt." This image was also another inspiration from #Adventus202One, this time being close to the scripture reference: Matthew, Chapter 2, Verse 13–15.
The inspiration for this was thinking about how the recently departed Holy Innocents may have processed with the Holy Family in their flight into Egypt from Herod's persecution, all under the protection St Michael the Archangel.

I just sketched this one rather quickly on some coloured paper and inked it with a calligraphy marker and text highlighters, because I just wanted to get it done and I didn't care how I got it done.
I'd been getting sick of doing so many watercolour pictures in a row and I wanted a break from that medium.

"St Joseph, Protector of the Holy Family." The title for this one basically explains all there is to this picture. Showing St Joseph as the Protector and Shield surround the Jesus and Mary.
Although I must not forget to acknowledge and appreciate @awememento's influence upon this particular painting of St Joseph and the Holy Family.
And her Etsy page can be found here.

Until next time, Happy Easter!

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stumbers: Ash Wednesday, covid-style

17/2/2021

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Above is my most recent Bishop Stumbers cartoon, which I finished and posted yesterday (Feb 16).

The idea for this picture began to come together in the previous fortnight over conversations about the new guidelines from the Vatican on how to distribute the ashes for Ash Wednesday during a pandemic (ie. sprinkling the ash on top of peoples' head rather than making a sign of the cross on peoples' foreheads) in a note published on January the 12th (link here).

Among the ideas discussed in those conversations was the fact that some of the more widely recycled memes about Ash Wednesday and the wide variety of cross placed upon the heads of Catholics would be no long applicable under the new guidelines, if anyone thought to think of it that way of course.
And so was born Stumbers' ponderance upon the collect of memes now made irrelevant, and somewhat historical, by the Vatican's new guidelines.

Hopefully next time I can get back to clearing the backlog of blog posts.
Until then, God Bless.

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ending the year

31/12/2019

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2019 is about to end. 2020 is about to begin. Hopefully by the end of January the building project to transform a verandah into a studio, and the spending project to get sufficient computer grunt to make it function, will be complete.

The 2020 Calendar featuring Socket Head came up well.
This is the image for December that seemed to be most resonant with Socket Heads's lifestyle and character.

Then a relative who has recently taken caretakership of an extremely placid cat started changing its nickname from Kitty Kat to Hideous Kittyous - and that was too delicious a nickname not to inspire an image.

Would you believe Bishop Stumbers made a return appearance, pondering his New Year resolutions for 2020? He should have added in 'Keep Out Of Trouble' as well, not that he is likely to be able to keep that one.

In the first 10 days of January I will be seeking God about what He wants for me, and what He wants me to do in 2020. I would appreciate your prayers very much because at the moment I don't know where the way forward is, only the many dead ends where it isn't.

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some variety to enjoy

30/6/2019

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This first one came together from several drawings scattered throughout my sketch book. They were drawn in ink and then digitally coloured. Getting the right balance between the individual panels of insects interiorly and exteriorly took a lot longer than I expected it to take.

This second one should need no introduction. There was something inside nagging at me to produce a 'The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe' image, inspired by C.S.Lewis's classic story.

For something completely different, these birds of paradise were painted from life, with acrylic on paper and without my own brushes. That's what happens when you go down to your local library and attend an art workshop you haven't attended before.

This last image, done with ink and Copic markers, was the result of finally getting some paper that the markers wouldn't bleed through, and going for a walk and seeing a most unusual tree.

There are several religious images I've completed, but they can wait until next time.

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more creations due to the 52 week illustration challenge

26/9/2017

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These are from Week 34 to Week 37 #illo52weeks.

The theme for Week 34 was Deep, and because I felt a need to mix things up a bit I scanned a sketch into the computer and then used Photoshop to build the image. This intelligent deep sea creature is the result:

For week 35 the theme was Bucket List. I don't have one of those yet, so I thought about others who might have trouble choosing. Again I sketched first, and spent even more hours on Photoshop. Here he is. His bags are packed, and the taxi is waiting outside for him. But where of all the places to go on his bucket list, should he go? His solution is a blindfold and a 'pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey' type pin.

Week 36's theme was Printing. There were several ways to go with this one, but I decided to go with the blocks of type-set letters that were used before printing text became electronic. For this one I went back to ink and watercolour.

Week 37's theme of Queen could have gone in many different directions too. But my inspiration was drawn to build on Lewis Carroll's character, mine being a bit more regal and less likely to yell 'off with his head'.

This is the kind of stuff that I like to do, bringing ideas and images to life in a variety of ways. What I don't know how to do is make a living by doing it. I have gone down many paths that have proved to be dead ends. If you can see an untried new path for me to explore, please get in contact.

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faces

4/1/2017

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The end is in sight. This is the sixth and final set of artworks for assessment to the London Art College's correspondence course D6 Illustrating Children's Books.

Of the set, the first part is a smaller project, which was an exercise in faces and shapes.

The brief went something like this:

Draw a series of rough geometic shapes: a circle, an oval, an up pointing triangle, a down pointing triangle, a square, a rectangle and a long U shape. Create faces from these shapes. Use exaggerated expressions. Experiment with colour, materials and types of line.

To get the experimentation right, I wrote out a list of methods.
Nib ink with minimum detail
Pen ink with more detail
Nib ink with watercolour
Pen ink with watercolour
Ink with coloured pencil
Watercolour first, ink last
Watercolour and pencil, with no ink

Then the fun started pairing up shape with method.

Here's the first page

And the second page

Yes, this exercise was fun indeed. One more exercise to go....

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Year of St Joseph – Part 1

stumbers: Ash Wednesday, covid-style

ending the year

some variety to enjoy

more creations due to the 52 week illustration challenge

faces

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