*Orders are now Closed*
 Vincent Cavanagh © 2024 * 2025 Calendar Flip-Through GIF added — 6 December 2024.
Happy Feast of St Joseph. Painted 14 March 2024  ‘St Joseph and Jesus (2024)’, Vincent Cavanagh, 2024 This painting may have only taken a day to paint, but it was a whole year—and two months—in the making. The product of a deadline that I didn’t think that I was even supposed to be working towards and God’s Timing. Aack! Leaving the histrionics aside, the photograph that this picture of St Joseph and the child Jesus is based upon was taken at a local church just before mass. A father was sitting with his family in a pew, about three rows over, holding his sleeping youngest son over his shoulder. One of those “take a photo or regret it”–moments from God. In the end, very little actually changed from the photograph—well, apart from changing clothes to robes, adding head coverings, and including hair on the back of St Joseph’s head, of course.
This whole hectic schedule of events was due to a conflicting parish event after the youth night and the lateness of the St Joseph’s Day Eve party at Joseph House being on at a prohibitively late time for me to attend. In the end the picture was printed (Thank God!) and present to the housemates, and it should now be hanging somewhere inside Joseph House. Vincent Cavanagh 19 Mar 2024 Now, as for an update on my previous update about working on writing down my experiences of WYD Lisbon, that’s no longer moving forward. I’m not joking when I write that it was a commandment from on high. And given how much I was reliving certain emotions to an unhealthy amount, I’m more than alright with just letting it drop and focusing on what God actually wants me to be focused on instead. Ask God before you leap into things whether you should be leaping into them at all. P.S. Also, the writing was the reason that I only had a single day left to paint Joseph and Jesus. (Face palm) Oi vey! 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. First off is this watercolour of Saint Pope Paul the Sixth that I did as a Memorial Card for a friend's Priestly Ordination at the end of May this year (2021).  Pentecost 2021. Then we skip back a week, or so, to Pentecost 2021 for this quick, unplanned sketchbook drawing. I'd been pulling my hair out earlier struggling to do something for Pentecost digitally and it wasn't working out, and then just before, say, 10 or 11 o'clock that night I made this with a black, blue and red ballpoint pens with text highlighters as well. You don't always need fancy stuff to make art.  St Charbel Makhlouf. And now come to the missing blog month of July with this watercolour of St Charbel Makhlouf, Maronite monk and priest, and a patron of Lebanon. At the moment I don't know if, or how long, this "pure watercolour" (ie, no ink outlines or such) style is going to stay. I think, on reflection, that it came about for 2 reasons: 1) during a conversation with a family friend whose eyesight is not what it once was, I realised that some of my more ink-heavy pictures (such as St Joseph and the infant Jesus) had no real clarity.  St Joseph and the infant Jesus (2020). I knew what I was looking at, but someone with bad eyesight couldn't untangle the mess of black ink from the sometimes equally dark watercolours; and 2) I'd been watching some watercolour demonstrations on Youtube (link here) and there was one where the instructor painted an picture of Santa Claus, for a Christmas Card, in with just Red, Yellow Ochre and, I think, Payne's Grey or Black. So that was an added impetus to change my style: I wanted to also try painting a face with just watercolour. And that is the condensed set of reasons why I painted Paul VI in watercolour (see above). Now as I mentioned earlier in this post, I've been, and I am still working, on editing and uploading our June Holiday to South Australia videos to Youtube. If you want to see where we went, I've put the first (in no way chronological) video at the bottom of this blog post. As of 12 July 2021, 12:49pm, there are 3 South Australia videos up on my Youtube channel (link here), with much more to come. So until next time (barring me forgetting again!) God bless and stay safe.  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. 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. |
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