Pieta Jesus after Michelangelo

Finally completed The Greatest Sacrifice.

Work in progress

Highlights have been added to his hair. Once this dries in  2 weeks time, blue glazes are going to go over the highlights. Nearly finished now.

Darker glazes have been added which have made Mary's blue more vivid. When these glazes dry, light blue highlights will be added to his hair on the top left to reflect the glow from Mary, then it should be nearing completion.

I am trying to capture the moment when the sky darkened and life left him. This painting is going to the priest of St. Joseph's church in Adlington Lancashire when he retires.

The reason that this painting is dedicated to a priest, is that in his eyes I saw a glimmer of what it is to sacrifice all that you have for something you utterly believe in.

For my sister, her wedding was one of the most important times of her life. She wanted it to be perfect. On the day, disaster struck and the registrar failed to turn up. In the eyes of the law the wedding could not go ahead. The priest stood calm, then said that he did not care if the Catholic church stuck him off, he was going to marry them, for they would be married in the eyes of God and he believed that was what mattered.

The look of strength and determination in his eyes made me realise that he truly believed he risked everything in doing this.

This is why I have chosen to depict this particular image of Jesus, the moment of ultimate sacrifice, for that moment of ultimate sacrifice I saw in the eyes of the priest who dedicated his entire life the priesthood and risked it's end.

He said it was worth the risk for him, as he would lunch off the story for years and years to come.

The mid tone glazes have been added and a number of highlights depicting the speckled light from the remnants of the darkening sun.

 Crown of Thorns

Original Oil Painting on canvas paper 9x6.5 inches.

This is a study of Michelangelo's sculpture Pieta. I have previously painted Mary from this sculpture but kept to the simple shades of the stone, this time I wanted to go full colour. 

Before starting this painting I studied as many of Michelangelo's paintings of Jesus as I could find, to try and match the skin tone and hair colour he used. Michelangelo layered  his colours and used black extensively and vivid saturated colour. His use of black shading is most obvious in the partly finished painting The Manchester Madonna. I am going to keep posting my work in progress so you can see how a painting changes when using the old techniques.