Knowing many years ago that my brother's ordination to the priesthood would one day come, I often thought that creating a painting for him would be a special gift. To that end, I transitioned from drawing to painting over the last year with the creation of a painting for Fr. Evan being one of the chief motivations (in addition to creating a painting as a gift my sister and her new husband). For Evan I selected an image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus that I found online and set about creating an original painting of the image, with some purposeful modifications to improve it in some areas.
This would be my first painting in color, with all the travails of learning how to mix color on the fly (one is supposed to transition much more slowly to painting in color in the classical tradition, but this was a baptism by fire and necessity). The great thing was, despite painting this image in color, the process of creating this painting took less time than the one I did for my sister and brother-in-law; I am learning as I go and everything is getting much more comfortable and proceeding more quickly.
This would be my first painting in color, with all the travails of learning how to mix color on the fly (one is supposed to transition much more slowly to painting in color in the classical tradition, but this was a baptism by fire and necessity). The great thing was, despite painting this image in color, the process of creating this painting took less time than the one I did for my sister and brother-in-law; I am learning as I go and everything is getting much more comfortable and proceeding more quickly.
This painting is a gift from both myself and Molly, who again generously donated the time to get the painting done and has always been extremely supporting of my learning to draw and paint in the classical tradition (no matter how crazy that sounded at first). I titled the painting Ego Sum, which is Latin for "I am" or "I am he," a reference to Christ's response when Judas and the soldiers said they sought "Jesus of Nazareth" in the Garden of Olives before his passion and death on the cross (Jn 18:1-8), and also a reference to the name of God.
Click any image to enlarge.
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| Ego Sum by Brendan Koop Oil on canvas 16 x 20" |
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| Closer view of the overall painting |
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| Close-up of the eyes |
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| Closer view of Christ's left hand, pointing to his Sacred Heart. |
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| Closer view of Christ's right hand in blessing. |
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| Here's a different view of the painting in different light, where you can see the paint on the canvas. |
2 comments:
Wow!
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