Easter Morning (2020)
Oh, one more thing…
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Working on The Thief Who Stole Heaven was a non-stop sprint. Right toward the end of the sprint, the finish line in sight, I was asked if I could add one more spread to the book, for the dedication/copyright page. They wanted something fairly simple in this case.
My records tell me that on Dec. 10th I turned in the last of the 18 2-page spreads that comprise the book. They would go to the author for any comments or revision requests. Apparently the next day, as I was turning my attention to outstanding revision requests, I received the request for this add-on.
I entered a second layer of panic as I hardly had time for the work that remained before we had to send the files to the printer. By lunch on the 11th I sent them the top thumbnail here, a quiet image of an emptied cross, a shaft of light crossing the image.
As you can see, it is absolutely minimal. Probably the background would’ve just been gray clouds. I thought the split page composition allowed for two nice text blocks for the necessary typography. I think the idea was nixed just on not introducing this imagery at the front of the book, since it features prominently in the back third. Fair enough. I decided to send them the second thumbnail, a simple scene of Golgotha as a bright dawn breaks over it. I don’t see them there, but I think the intent was always to have the three crosses tiny on top.
Anyway, this was submitted on the 14th after I’d heard back, and approved. The following morning I grabbed a sheet of the Arches Hot Press Watercolor Paper I had used for most of the book (from a 12x16” block), sized and primed in gray gesso, and got to work.
I had hastily sketched out some of the foreground elements in white pastel pencil and here I am using probably gesso white to begin to knock back the sky. You might ask why I started with a gray toned sheet versus default white, and that would be a fair question. It’s possible that I had extra primed sheets that weren’t used for whatever reason (the cover ended up being larger, and on illustration board, for instance). It’s also possible that I preferred knocking back the gray to white, thinking that the gray would help more in the shadowed hillside and for the clouds that remained.
Either way, by 10:15am on the 15th I had taken the first photo, and continued in acrylic. An hour and a half later, I had completed the underpainting and sealed it to move to oils
My final scan is dated the following day, the 16th, at 4:50pm. I think I completed this piece start to finish on the 15th, as I was working very long, late days through the project. This allowed some drying time and for varnishing before getting the scan. That being the case, it’s a piece that I liked, done in a manic flurry of activity, operating more on instinct than planning.
The project essentially complete, I still had another week or so of revisions to work on before putting the project to bed, but the end was at least finally in sight.
