St. Sebastian And St. Irene Of Rome

St. Sebastian and St. Irene of Rome

The motif of Saint Sebastian perforated by arrows is in itself quite common, but I found far less depictions of the scene that followed, involving the widowed Saint Irene and her servant rescuing him from this martyrdom (only for him to be martyred again later lol), so I decided to try my hand at it.

Besides, I wanted to paint something with more anatomical detail, as I have been quite lacking behind in doing actual studies and involving it in an actual painting makes anatomy more interesting to me.

I feel it necessary to note that I myself am not religious, but growing up in a historically somewhat catholic area and having an interest in religions and mythologies must've imbued me with a certain interest in the imagery, I guess.

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Closeups:

So, I've had a watercolour underpainting for this little portrait for quite a while now, and a couple days ago I decided to finally get out my acrylic paints and paint it. I don't use acrylic paint that much, since it tends to be a bit messier and more work to clean compared to, say, watercolour. Still I am quite happy with how the painting looks.

Orestes and Erinys

A bit over a month ago I had to give a short presentation on Aischylos‘ Oresteia as part of my coursework and reading it gave me the idea for this piece.

Specifically, it is referencing lines 1057-1058 of the Libation Bearers, where, for the first time, Orestes is seeing the Furies.

(The text does explicitly describe blood dripping from the Furies’ eyes, but when I noticed this, the idea of a blood-covered face had already developed, and I chose to keep it. Also I didn’t have the time or patience to paint more than two figures, so I suppose you can imagine the rest of the Furies somewhere off-screen or something)

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(Close-ups)

I read that we’re about to get a movie in the coming year, so I decided to rewatch the series, which in turn led to a new bout of fan-brainrot.

Anyway, here’s some fanart of everybody’s favourite Medicine Seller. I also took the opportunity to mess around with the colour choices, as I have recently found my art lacking in that regard. I am not entirely happy with the result, but it looks decent enough to post.

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Close-ups:

I found the time to paint again. As said before, posts may be quite infrequent in the coming months, as school takes precedent over my hobbies and I might not be able to draw/paint as much. Still, I bring you this watercolour/ acrylic painting based on Hypnos, the Greek god/ personification of sleep.

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I'm not entirely sure about the colours, but quite like the composition. I originally wanted to create illuminated-manuscript-style illustrations on the cape, but I ran out of patience halfway through colouring, so I decided to go for a much simpler pattern. I'm also trying to implement slightly more elaborate backgrounds in my traditional illustrations instead of just letting the central character hover in a vaguely defined 'white void'.