Cassian of Imola, Patron Saint of Parish Secretaries and of Mexico City. Commissioned for a holy card. 4.5" x 6.5", ink. July 2008. Artist's Collection.
It has been a while since I shared some of my ink illustrations with our readership, but my last year has been full of a number of substantial illustration commissions, and there is the possibility of an exciting parochial commission in the near future.
I present these, not just to show our readers what I'm doing when not writing, but also because many of the design issues I have had to address represent in minature some of the larger concerns we have discussed on this website, particularly what constitutes what might be termed the traditional, canonical 'deposit' of iconography that lies at the core of Christian art, and what stylistic elements that make manifest that deposit may be molded and organically developed over time. I have found accepting the basic medieval iconographic conventions frees me up in a very liberating way to explore all sorts of intriguing stylistic issues within that framework.
In any case, I'll let the work speak for itself. Some of these have appeared elsewhere, and a number are new to the web; there's a good many others I've done in recent months but these are some of my favorites.
S. Peter Martyr. 4" x 6", ink. Commissioned as a confirmation gift. September 2008. Private Collection, Virginia.
The Dream of S. Martin. 4.6" x 10.8", ink. Commissioned by a medical gentleman in Wales. October 2008. Private Collection, Great Britain.
S. Agnes of Rome. 4" x 6", ink. July 2008. Artist's Collection.
