Presentation finished

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So I finished the 4th Joyful Mystery, "The Presentation." Praise be to God! It feels pretty good to be done. I think it definitely helped having the underpainting there to work on top of. I made some minor tweaks as I went along but pretty much stayed true to the original design. 

It definitely helped doing a lot of the heavy lifting prior to the final painting and made this step a lot quicker and more enjoyable. 

I don't really want to offer too much in the way of an explanation of the composition and other artistic decisions I made. I feel like that always cheapens it, and it's much more fun to let the viewer make of it what you will. 

I will let you know, however, which parts caused the most trouble and which came the easiest. It is very hard to tell which will be which when first starting out. Areas that I think will be the most challenging often aren't, and vice versa. For this one, I probably spent the most time on Anna's green cloak, never quite satisfied with how it was turning out. 

I was expecting the hands and faces to take the longest but actually I was able to do them fairly quickly. 

To be honest, when I come to this point, I am ready to move on. I feel like I've been staring at the same image for months (which I have), and have already spent a lot of time daydreaming of other paintings I want to make.

Next up is the last of the Joyful Mysteries, "Finding Jesus in the Temple." I am excited to get started and to actually complete this series which has been years now in the making. With my schedule, it is not always easy to scratch out the time to be able to work on this stuff.

I already have the composition in mind that I want to use for the final painting. I am now just working on finding the rest of the models I need and photographing them (any takers?). Stay tuned for the final installment of the series!

Let me know what you think and please contact me if you'd like to buy a print of this painting.

Oh and make sure you follow me on instagram to see the next painting every step of the way!