Saturday, April 27, 2013

Daily Draw: Japanese Madonna (pt 2)


I decided to pick up a project I had begun a while back and left because I didn't feel I had the skills to do it justice then. I want to finish it properly. So using the skills I have learned in the meantime I am going back and tidying things up, preparing it to be made into a proper engraving. So far I guess I am halfway done on the long road that leads from a sketch to a finished product. I have I would guess about 16 hours into this image so far.

This image is very special for me, and my desire to do a good rendition of it goes way back to 2006, when I saw the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC. They had an amazing image of Mary in a Japanese style which was incredibly striking, and which I knew I HAD to immitate. But back then I was in seminary, and had no time for art or much of anything else besides studies. Then, about a year ago, I remembered my experiences at the National Shrine and decided to go looking for pictures. Of course, I couldn't find any good ones that fit the mental image I had (which just shows that impressions are fickle things) so I kept looking for others.

I eventually settled on a piece that was made by an unknown nun at a Carmelite convent in Tokyo. And that became the model I used for my earlier sketches.

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