Catacombs Painting

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I have decided to re-post this image. The first time I put it here I spent no time on it. I admit, I was in a huge hurry just to get it online and cared little for the rest of the content.

First the why. This painting was created as my entry in the Gnomon Workshop monthly challenge for February of 2008. The topic for that month was Catacombs. I won first place with this painting.I didn’t want to paint dusty old tunnels, with zombies or walking skeletons. I wanted to add a human element that was emotionally stronger than my first idea of a female Indiana Jones like character. So I started thinking about popular mythology and the various historic  uses for ancient catacombs. And then this lead me to the early Christian church. They hid, and worshipped in the catacombs. Well the most touching moment that I came up with, related to this stream of consciousness was a lover saying goodbye. So here we have a modern Mary Madelaine saying goodbye to Jesus, in a sense, not literally of course.

Both characters have matching tattoos and he has a wedding ring, hers is hidden by her left hand placement, but she is obviously caressing his face. I cast the whole shot with a “god light” for dramatic effect. The praying angel statue/pillar in the background was funny to me, I wanted to add more detail back there on the left, as it would have otherwise just been dark, and looked very wrong. By placing the praying statue at the convergence of the two arches it gave her wings. And then of course, there is the flower. Why a flower? Several reasons. In all cultures flowers are part of the ceremony of death. Each culture has their particular variety, and the meanings vary. The other major reason, I had created such a strong diagonal with his left arm coming down, that I needed an element to catch the eye for a moment and give the viewer something to rest on.

Can you recognize the particular flower? I know what it is because I painted it, the flower is specifically a Stargazer Lily. Using an Easter Lily would have been over the top, plus I wanted to hint more to a modern interpretation. In my mind, and maybe only there the Stargazer implies a more Sci-Fi element. The flower looks and smells alien. It is beautiful but odd, and in name alone “StarGazer” it implies other worldly.

Back to the composition. It is very classical in pose and alignment. Basically a big diamond composed of smaller triangles. I tried to use the transition from lighter to darker, to lighter and the angles of arms, faces, etc to draw the eye around and make it interesting with a minimal amount of subject matter. Like the sole flower at the bottom. I was originally going to cover the floor with them. But it would have drawn too much attention and have lost the implication of a singular lost love. it is more romantic with the one flower. The tattoos like the flower were needed to give a resting point for the eye when you come to the convergence of major diagonals, plus they symbolize a relationship between the two characters.

The actual process of painting was treated in much the same way I work with oils. I started by deriving a palette based around the colors available during the time of the Dutch masters. Working digitally I had some room to play, but this painting started with 4 colors + a black and white. All of the tomes are derived from mixing these colors. I often lay-in the darkest values of each section first, making sure to fill the whole space occupied by the tone. I then add progressively lighter and more saturated glazes of transparent color until I arrive at the highest highlights. As I am doing this I am conscious of a couple important things, Color is rarely pure, it’s compliment is often found in shadows, and things like skin will have blues and greens as well as the reds. And I also needed to portray the one character as very much alive and the other dead. So for her I tended to add more red glazes and for him more blue, green and yellow. His highlights are also more pure white than hers. however on his face I used more saturated values than anywhere else on his body. I did this to help the viewer be attracted to that point on the painting. it also implies that the light is striking his face more directly.

I spent over 40 hours doing this painting. today I could probably cut that time in half and have atleast as good of result. This is due to several lessons I have learned since then, and not trying to exactly emulate oil painting, but using the tools available digitally to work more efficiently.

I could not have done this painting without the help of Stephen Eide and his fantastic reference photographs of the two models. All three are getting signed prints of this painting. Stephen has supplied me with loads of reference photos for paintings that are still in the works. And this is something I recomend highly, either become a good photographer yourself, and carry a camera along with your sketchbook, everywhere you go. Or become good friends with a photographer.

The value of quality reference material cannot be overstated. I also tend to haunt Barnes and Nobles sales section. They have mounds of coffee table photo books on a wide variety of topics. I have bought many for under $10. Some of the most valuable to me have been, Cars Europe Never Built, The World’s Strangest Aircraft, and the Encyclopedia of Firearms. You never know when you need a spark to start drawing from, and it is good to know the actual history of any subject you might paint. Books I would love to find today would deal with period clothing, and deep sea creatures to name a couple.