Presentation at the Nicolai Church.
It has been received with a lot of enthusiasm. After the service Cornelis and I have had a lot of attention. Many people come to chat and ask questions why we have done this, how long it has taken, what the meaning and use of an icon is etcetera. It has been really a great start-of!
On the left you see me talking after the service with some church members.
Presentation at the Bonaventura Church in Woerden
The Catholic community of the Bonaventure Church was so friendly to lend us their meeting hall and they even took care of the coffee!
Both Cornelis and I were stressed for the presentation. The panel was almost finished when we put it up for display. A lot of people came, we counted about 50 people! We did a presentation on the history how the icon came into being. We told something about the painting techniques and our own experience.
Pastor Bakker who is affiliated to our church was also present and he performed a short speech on the passion week of Christ. After this he said a prayer to bless the icon on it's travel he would start the following day.
The standard has arrived!
John hanks for your help!
16th of February
Cornelis and I quit busy with adding the last details, beside a busy life in general.
To update the status: we have finished the central crucifixion, filled in the missing scene’s, added the Dutch texts, the silver leaf and currently I am applying the gold leaf.
Here some pictures to have an impression of our latest activities
25th January 2010
There are four scenes left to paint, the central picture, the last supper, before the high priest and the descent into limbo. I have started this night with the central scene where the Pharisees discuss with Pilate that he needs to remove the name tag ‘The King of the Jews’. I can almost feel the resentment of the Pharisees but Pilate turns the request down. This is displayed by his hand turned down.
When all the images are ready we can start with the gilding. As you can see Cornelis has just applied the orange frame around the icon.
Status end of December
The biggest problem is finding time to paint.... But it is a joy and my prayer that the Lord will bless and use the Passion icon for his work.
Status mid November
Accidents happen...
Status November 2009
Jesus' suffering
Matthew 17: 22-23
The picture where Jesus is taken from the cross is almost finished. This must have been a truely sorrowful event for the disciples and the woman in the picture. I can understand that they didn't think of the second part of what Jesus has said to them. How could they foresee confronted with his dead body that Jesus would rise up from the dead a few days later. Joyfully it is the last stage of the icon.
Cornelis and I don't have as much time as we would have liked to work on the painting. However we are fairly on schedule, roughly 4 months to go before it is Easter.
Back from the summer stop
I think we will be able to be ready by that time. The Nicolai Church is planning an exhibition so we need to take care. We are in a way on schedule, however the gilding and 'silvering' will also take some time.
Thoughts; One of Three
I have asked a man from church, who is a furniture maker, to create a 'stand' for the icon. One which is strong to uphold the icon, but also easy to be disassembled for travel.
In contemplating the icon one evening. An idea sprung to mind. In fact the Passions icon is an account of the last days of Christ on Earth, which we can 'follow'. What our eyes can see, God descended in human life form. Walked the earth in the district of current day Israel, and then he died. The spiritual message is that he died for our sins and the time of Grace started. The time when God does not judge (directly I think) humankind, and the ways of men will go it's way unto a climax, which is accounted for in the Apocalypse, disasters of many kinds come upon the world. This ends in the return of Jesus Christ, the second coming, where human kind will be judged, the devil bound and God's era or eternal reign will follow. The end of time as we know it, that might be less dramatic then it sounds. God's person is not bound to time as we are.
So in fact the Passion icon is also a symbol or picture of a timeframe, the end of the period of 'un- saveable' fall of men. One picture of the icon displays the event where Jesus is victor over death. Death which became part of human life after Adam and Eve's disobedient act of eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (God's original design was that we actually would not die, which is a amazing thought).
This means the Passions Icon is one of three. One of the three mayor time frames in Christianity.
The first starts with God's project of creating the earth and the creation of man. Man become disobedient and fell from his state of grace. This started the time of the old testament, with a clear border/ distance between God and men.
The second part is the Crucifixion of Jesus, as said, died for our sins and made the way to God open again. It is the time of grace we currently live in.
The third is 'the end of days', the end of time of the reign of ungodly people. It's more or less the account of the book of Revelations.
So I am making one of three, when this panel is ready, I should start with the other two. Making it into the history, present and future map of the God-human history. Wow, I don't know there exists an icon in 'stages' on the creation of the earth and man, but that is easy to do. There is an icon on Judgement day, not a nice subject though.
I started to Google on inspiration. So this blog will stay on air for a long time.... and I will post my thoughts.
(Three is a 'divine' number, the Trinity is on the basis of this)
July 2009, Wall of Jerusalem
I am sure the icon will be ready at Easter next year. Thought still a lot of work remains, there are a lot of details to be filled in.
On the left side the 'taking Jesus of the cross' and the 'burial of Jesus' are nearly finished.
The Crucifixion
Details of the Crucifixion
Cornelis@work
Marcel@work
May Status
The beating of Jesus
This is the first picture with the theme, mocking/torture of Jesus. I finished this one on the frist Easter day and I must say it was a 'real' experience. On Good Friday I have been with Cornelis to a service where the whole bible story of Good Friday was read. I am very content of the result.
Ecco Homo
This image is called 'Ecco Homo' where Pilate washed his hands in innocence. It is the next picture I will work on.
Mocking of Jesus II
There are three pictures with the mocking/ torture of Jesus as central theme. This is the third one. I post it so you can follow the progress.
Interview by RPL radio
Yesterday Cornelis and I have been interviewed by the local radio, every Saturday Helga Warmels hosts a guest on her programme and interviews local people on faith related things they do. I must say I was a little bit nervous. Next Saturday you can listen to the programme at our local radio, 18.00.... :) Helga is also a freelance reporter, she said she will try to sell the story to a national newspaper….
This is a picture with a complete overview of the panel. We are almost ready with the 14 stages leading up to the crucifixion... Almost means several months in time I guess.
17 March 2009
Steady moving on..
Before Herod Ready
One thing I noticed from this scene, the soldior on the left has blond hair, maybe this is a hint, or a signature of the painter where he gave himself a place in the scene. Al the other characters have brown hair..
The Feet Washing Ready
The Washing of the Feet is ready, this has been quite a challange. There are a lot of details in the picture. I noticed that I am improving on the faces. They are just a few small things left to do.
Two scenes almost ready
We are going fast! We have about 1/3 of the surface covered. Yesterday we had a good night working together. It is too bad that we don't have more time for painting. I am afraid we will not make it before Easter 2009.
The Entry to Jerusalem
The Entry to Jerusalem is finished, nearly, I only need to do the feet of the apostels. I am strugling a bit with the faces. I will redo a few on the image you see. But I will continue with the rest of the panel and do that as one of the final stages. Soon the 'Washing of the Feet' will be ready so you can expect a posting soon.
The 'text balloon' is empty. We haven't decided yet if we will use Russian or Dutch..
Status on 9th of February 2009
Taken on my toes the status of today. I regret that we have so little time to work on the panel. I am afraid we will not make it on Easter 2009..
Esther and Annelotte came over and helped painting
Last week my niece Esther and her friend Annelotte came over to help paint the passion panel.
They have art classes at school and I noticed that they have a very steady hand. Thanks for your help girls!
Status at 1 January 2009
The past few weeks I have had some extra time to work on the panel and work is proceeding quit good. A funny thing I noticed, sometimes I make mistakes in filling the colours. I noticed that the original painter encountered the same problem. At the scene 'Entry into Jerusalem' I forgot to fill in a certain part with green background. Looking at the original I saw that this happened before due to the fact that the green in that part differs from the other (ground) green.
Four panels almost ready
The scene of the treason of Jude is finished, the entry into Jerusalem is almost ready, including the washing of the feet. Most difficult are the faces. Most of the times they turn out pretty well. See the next picture for a close up.
The treason of Jude
I have had some time to work on the panel the past week. We decided it is more fun to finish each 'stage' seperatly. The stage 'the kiss of Jude' is almost finished. There is no reason why we started with this one, it is simply the easiest to reach.
With steady pace moving on..
We have moved to the Wilhelminaweg
I have moved the 'Work in Progress' tab to the front. This is where we will regularly post a picture. We have also moved, from the prayershop to my bedroom.... The attic we were using is going to be used for other activities and it was a small attic. We are moving on with steady pase, I must say it is actually great to have the panel at home because every day you are reminded and confronted with the progress. A part of painting, is also looking, thinking, evaluation, changing a detail etc.
11 nov 2008: Creating the outlines
We have come to the step of creating the outlines of the figures. Instead of drawing from the example we have chosen to use a print to copy the outlines. On the back of the paper you see in the picture we have attached pigment. This pigmented paper works as a carbon paper. By drawing the main features of the pictures we will have the out linings of the figures.
It is actually not an easy job. Just two scenes took me two hours. It might be necessary to change the time frame for the icon... I don't know if we will be finished by Easter 2009...
7 nov 2008: We are ready with the chalk layers
Last Friday evening we have done a lot of work, we have finished the chalk layer by sanding it with four types of sanding paper, rough to very fine which polished the surface.
We have prepared prints of the icon on real size, we use this to copy the outlines of the figures. Now we can start with painting, but first we need to clean up the attic of the prayer shop, we produced a lot of chalk dust...
26 oct 2008: The Chalk layers in Progress
The past few weeks Cornelis and me have been meeting at the shop to add new layers of chalk. Oficially about 12 layers are necesarry. We make a 'Levkas' mixture of half a litre of water, 16 leaves of gelatin, an egg yolk and enough chalk until it is a creamy mixture. The first layers were the hardest, but now it is an easy process. We are happy to mention that we have hardly any bubbles in the chalk!
Cornelis will come back one time more to add a layer and then we can start with sanding the surface next saturday.
12 oct 2008: The first steps been taken!
At the Gamma wood store we have bought a panel of 150x200 mtr. We weren't shure if it would be able to move it to the attic of the prayer house of the Parousia Church in Woerden, but it was possible with some manouvering! Getting it from the attic will be an other story, but I don't want to think about it as yet.
In this picture the back side of the panel received it's first layer of paint, black, to be the under ground for the following brown layer when the front of the panel is finished. With some luck before Easter 2009!