Cavanagh Art
  • Home
  • About Vincent
  • Artist CV
  • Artwork
    • 2022
    • 2021
    • CATHOLinktober 2020
    • 2020
  • Blog
  • Portfolios
  • Creative Writing
  • Resources for Artists
  • Contact
  • Home
  • About Vincent
  • Artist CV
  • Artwork
    • 2022
    • 2021
    • CATHOLinktober 2020
    • 2020
  • Blog
  • Portfolios
  • Creative Writing
  • Resources for Artists
  • Contact

Blog

Stumbers, Vocations & Fish Barrels

23/8/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
©VincentCavanagh 2022
Yes, I’m finally back on the blog again. For however long that may be.

And the subject that brought not just me but also Bishop Stumbers and the Dean back? Vocations.

Read More
0 Comments

Okay, so I totally missed July

12/8/2021

0 Comments

 
For 2 reasons: 1) I've been preoccupied editing our June Holiday videos and; 2) I totally forgot about the website. Apologies.

Okay so let's start with the artwork then; which requires us going back to May:
Picture
St Pope Paul VI.

Read More
0 Comments

A Quick Digital Picture

4/5/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
Blossom – Tram Scene
Just something I put together tonight. It took me about an hour, an hour-and-a-half, maybe? I didn't really bother to time how long I spent on it.

Recently I had a chance to ride on the Sydney Light Rail network to Randwick for the funeral of a family friend, so perhaps that is what inspired this picture. The telephone box is based on a preserved example at the Sydney Tramway Museum at Loftus. Other than those two things I've also had a few stray thoughts about Japanese paintings rattling around in my head. That about it really.

I have ideas of maybe making this into a 3D animation, but I don't know if it isn't anything more than just a pipedream at the moment.
​
Stay safe and God bless.

— — — — — 
Digital Painting in a limited palette.
0 Comments

Year of St Joseph - Part 3

1/5/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
Year of St Joseph: Birth of Jesus.
Looking back on this picture as I'm trying to write a blog post for it, I'm stuck by how (without any forethought or planning) Joseph and Mary look very, very alike to a recently married couple I know. Funny how the subconscious works, eh?

Anyhow, the 1st of May is dedicated to St Joseph the Worker, so how do I commemorate this fact? I paint the Birth of Jesus in the cave/stable.
Specifically I had in my mind how Joseph must have been after the birth: dazed and confused, in a sea of emotions.
"Alright God, now what am I supposed to do?"
And there before him is Mary, totally ensconced in the new life sitting in her arms. She is a total rock of calm amongst the swimming tide of emotions overtaking Joseph as he tries unconsciously to sit down somewhere amongst the animals, inside that cave, on that awesome, and holy, night.

A happy month and feast of St Joseph to you all. Even if it's via Nazareth.

— — — — — 
Digital painting, based on a rough pen sketch.
0 Comments

Late Night Sketching

20/4/2021

0 Comments

 
Lately I've been participating in an online tuition course for Blender 3D, which has been a good if somewhat challenging experience. The challenging part being trying to work in a group with many other students in multiple different time zones (and the associated late nights that come with it), but I'll talk about that more in a later post. Sometime in May. Hopefully.

Below is the sketch that I made last night to release some of my creative frustrations:
Picture
Christ Pantocrator (2021).
I just needed to do something religious to make up for my recent lack of any such artworks.
The original Christ Pantocrator (roughly translated as "All-Mighty" in Greek), that is the inspiration of this image, is one of the first icons depicting Jesus in early history of the Church, and remains to this day a very important image in the Eastern Orthodox Church.
It depicts the two natures of Christ, being both fully God and fully human, through the different sides of His face.

Below are the mirrored composites of the left and right sides of my rough sketch:
Picture
Pantocrator Blessing, Mirrored.
Picture
Pantocrator Gospels, Mirrored.
Honestly, I had no real plan about how to mirror this image, I just had the vaguest of recollections of what a Pantocrator Icon should look like and I went from there. So I sketched in out with blue ballpoint pen and went over it with a water-based black marker, and added colour with text highlighters. In hindsight I really should've either scanned or at least taken a photo of the under drawing, but I decide to let it go and just keep on drawing with the black marker.

The one real difference between this sketch and the Icon it's based on, is that the real Pantocrator doesn't have the wounds of Christ in it, as far as I know.


So, until the muse next takes me or I need another outlet to create, God bless and stay safe.
0 Comments

Year of St Joseph - Part 2

19/4/2021

0 Comments

 
Continuing with St Joseph, here are the 2 most recent images that I have done. Both of them where created with Copic alcohol-markers and water-based pens, with pencil under drawings.
Picture
"Most Chaste Heart of St Joseph." This one was made on the first Wednesday of March (2021), because every first Wednesday of the month is dedicated to St Joseph. This was an opportunity for me to do the Chaste Heart of St Joseph justice as I'd only previously done a very small version for CATHOLinktober, Day 19, "Chaste Heart of St Joseph". It was also a chance to try out some Bristol Pad paper that I'd bought earlier. 
Picture
"Reunion." Showing the reunion of St Joseph with Jesus after the crucifixion and before the resurrection. This was painted in honour of the feast day of St Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin (March 19), after having the haunting last few words from the poem Limbo by Sister Mary Ada running through my head that day.

Here are the last 2 stanzas from that poem:

And there He was
Splendid as the morning sun and fair
As only God is fair.
And they, confused with joy,
Knelt to adore
Seeing that he wore
Five crimson stars
He never had before.

No canticle at all was sung.
None toned a psalm, or raised a greeting song.
A silent man alone
Of all that throng
Found tongue --
Not any other.
Close to His heart
When the embrace was done,
Old Jospeh said,
"How is Your Mother,
How is Your Mother, Son?"



Until next time, God bless.
0 Comments

stumbers: Ash Wednesday, covid-style

17/2/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
​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.
0 Comments

the long pause continues

30/4/2020

0 Comments

 
You know how Kermit the Frog used to say, 'It's not easy being green.'
Well at the moment, it's not easy being creative either.
It has been neatly summed up by @evancabnet on Twitter thus:
"WRITERS. I have a secret to share with you. Every single day, I speak with a different playwright (or screenwriter, or novelist) who confesses they haven’t been able to concentrate and they aren’t getting anything done."
As at today it has had 31.7K likes and 4,9K Retweets since Apr 17.
Comments attached to that Tweet proved that artists, illustrators and graphic designers were all feeling it too.
Many of those comments put my own feelings in to words.

What I have been slowly working on is colouring some of the black & white images from Socket Head's Inktober 2019 adventures. 

​Overgrown Day 14
Picture
Treasures Day 21
Picture
Dark Day 26
Picture
Coat Day 27
Picture
Maybe, just maybe, if I get them all coloured I might make a small non-standard story book out of them. But there are 16 more to do...... 
0 Comments

adding colour

30/11/2019

0 Comments

 
November has been a month busy with colouring some of the Inktober 2019 images in preparation for printing my 2020 Calendar. There is still a few more hours of work to do on it, but I hope to get it to the printers early next week.

So here are 2 other Intober images, the black & white version followed by the colour version.

​The theme for Day 5 was Build
Picture
And how can you build without ACME?
Picture
The theme for Day 6 was Husky
Picture
That is a plaintive, husky cry for help!
​But did you expect such a building project to end any other way? 
Picture
Now, back to work, to get the 2020 Calendar finished.
If you want your own, get in contact before I go to the printers because we only do a single print run.
0 Comments

The 52 week illustration challenge for 2017 begins

21/1/2017

0 Comments

 
This challenge for illustrators has been going for a few years, but this is the first time I am giving it a go. At the beginning of the year a list is posted online containing a list of weekly themes. http://illo52weeks.blogspot.com.au/search/label/2017%20themes
 
Illustrators can then post their efforts for each weekly theme on social media with the #illo52weeks hashtag. Mine are getting posted to Twitter @VJCavanagh .

So far I'm using different paper for this challenge, both in manufacturer and in size (170mm x 235mm), and I've been using nib ink too.

Week 1's theme was Whimsy. Here is the ink only version: 
Picture
And the coloured one
Picture
Week 2's theme was Feathered Animals. 
Picture
And here's the difference colour makes...
Picture
Week 3's theme was Australiana (in time for Australia Day on 26 January)
Picture
And let's add some colour...
Picture
So far the challenge has been fun. It is a pleasant change to have such an open ended brief to work with. Should I remember, I'll go for medium compression rather than full compression from here on in with this size paper because the full compression isn't giving a good online image.

Week 4 is an Ode to a favourite children's book....however I haven't yet decided what my favourite children's book is yet.
0 Comments
    Picture

    NEWS AND OTHER STUFF

    About recent artwork, inspirations and other things I find interesting.
    For earlier blog posts visit http://cavanaghartdiary.weebly.com/blog

    Archives

    January 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    August 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    August 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016

    Categories

    All
    2018 Calendar
    2019 Calendar
    2020 Calendar
    2023 Calendar
    52 Week Illustration Challenge
    Acrylic
    Advent
    Advent 2020
    Animals
    Animation
    Archive
    Art Studio
    Bishop Stumbers
    Black & White
    Blender 3D
    Catholic
    Catholic Youth
    CATHOLinktober 2020
    Chiropractor
    Cinema4D
    Collage
    Colour
    Coloured Pencil
    Comic
    Comic Style
    Commission
    Competition Entry
    CYA Conference
    Digital
    Easter
    Etsy
    Faces
    Father's Day
    G. K. Chesterton
    Graphic Design
    Guadalupe
    Hacked Instagram
    Icon
    Illustration Department Assignment
    Illustration Of Text
    Illustration Portfolio
    Image Process
    Ink Brush
    Ink & Copic Markers
    Ink & Digital Colour
    Inktober
    Inktober 2019
    Inktober 2020
    Ink & Watercolour
    IWitness
    Lent
    London Art College
    Looser Work
    Madonna And Child
    Maronite
    Mentorship
    Mixed Media
    Mixing It Up
    Mother's Day
    New Season
    Newsletter
    Nib Ink
    Our Lady
    Paper Art
    Pen Ink
    Pentecost
    Picture Book Spread
    Podiatrist
    Prayer Cards
    Project Portfolio
    Puffing Billy Railway
    Religious Images
    Robots
    Saints
    Sketchbook
    Social Media
    Socket Head
    South Australia
    Star Of The Sea
    St Joseph
    Sydney
    TAFE Work
    Thick Pencil
    Title Of BVM
    Trains
    Trams
    Update
    Video
    Vignette
    Wall Art
    Wall Paint
    Watercolour
    Website
    World Youth Day
    World Youth Day 2008
    World Youth Day 2023
    WYD Lisbon 2023
    Year Of St Joseph

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • About Vincent
  • Artist CV
  • Artwork
    • 2022
    • 2021
    • CATHOLinktober 2020
    • 2020
  • Blog
  • Portfolios
  • Creative Writing
  • Resources for Artists
  • Contact