 I don’t know if I would dare put this under the inglorious epithet of “New Year’s Resolutions”, this decision was not taken at New Year’s Eve, but it is about the new year of 2023, and I would argue that it is a resolution. Let me elaborate.
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Yippee! It's done.  ©VincentCavanagh 2022 That's right folks! After a month's worth of inking and going cross-eyed at various reference photographs, my 2023 Calendar: WYD Lisbon Fundraising edition is now available to buy. Contact can be made via Email or Facebook Messenger.
Pricings for the calendar are as follows:
So last fortnight I did something for the first time that I thought I would never do: I made a #MayThe4th cartoon, featuring Bishop Stumbers.
'Bishop Stumbers, May The 4th' Vincent Cavanagh © 2022
 'Pannier Tank and Diesel Shunter' Vincent Cavanagh © 2022 I have painted in a while, but I did thankfully do a small "just for fun" painting on Good Friday (15 April 2022).
It's little scene, set in either the early hours of the morning or before dusk, containing a generic-looking Great Western Railway Pannier Tank engine opposite a British Railways Class 08 Diesel shunter that appears to be having bit of trouble starting up. Note the fireworks coming out the top of it. 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:  St Pope Paul VI.
 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. 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:  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:  Pantocrator Blessing, Mirrored.  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. 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.  "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.  "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. 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!  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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