Triptychs for Kansas City Catholic Church
In honor of its upcoming 150 year anniversary, Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church commissioned me to paint two triptychs depicting Mary and Joseph to replace the existing statues and brighten up the front of the church.
When Fr. Anthony and I began the discussion in 2019, he already had in mind the scenes that would be depicted. On the left would be Mary at Pentecost with St. Michael to honor the Holy Spirit. On the right would sit Joseph presenting Jesus at the temple on the day he would receive his holy name (in reference to the church’s namesake); St. Gabriel gazes from above and the genealogy of Joseph joyfully welcomes Jesus from beyond the grave.
The Challenge: Bring some color back to this culturally vibrant parish that has been beige for too long!
The Inspiration: Pentecost and the Presentation
I began the design process by drawing from my imagination. I also came up with some color studies. Around this time, Father also suggested we turn these into triptychs - in part to expand the design to allow for more background characters, and also to have side doors to close during penitential seasons or if a video needed to be projected on one of them.
The Design: Photographic References
My imagination can only take me so far. It’s important to have photographic reference of actual people to provide more inspiration but also accurate proportions and lighting. The first to be photographed were my friends Horacio and Bernardo. I loved the idea of using actual brothers to depict Sts. Michael and Gabriel.
It was important that the designs of the murals were not only striking on their own, but would also relate to each other. So the colors, style, lighting would all need to have similar elements (for instance, the candles on Joseph’s side mimicking the flames on Mary’s).
We also made announcements at mass requesting volunteers from the parish to pose as the background characters. We had already chosen Leticia for Mary and Austin for Joseph, Baby Tabor for Jesus, and Fr. Anthony himself for the priest.
Two Saturdays in a row, the volunteers came to the Little Sisters of the Lamb monastery where we dressed them up in borrowed costumes, lit and posed them, and took photos.
The Digital Mock Up
Using this bounty of reference photos, I used my iPad and the Procreate app to combine the best ones together. The poses were perfect, but the values were not. Using the photo mock ups as a guide, I painted in the lights and shadows to make the front characters stand out and the entire scene look unified.
Practice paintings
Since this church hasn’t had much change for decades, we decided to do 1/16th size versions as a way to ease the parish into the idea of replacing the beloved statues. Fr. Anthony did an amazing job explaining the vision and the parish approved!
These paintings were done with acrylics and COBRA water-soluble oil paints.
The first panels: Painting Pentecost
I officially left my full time job in September of 2022 to complete the final paintings. Fr. Anthony built these panels himself in his garage. We decided to make them wooden panels instead of stretched canvas so I could use paint rollers. This decision made them more heavy, but durable. Together with my dad, we all transported the wooden panels to my studio just a few blocks away from Holy Name.
I first began by priming the panels with a light yellow tinted all purpose exterior primer. This acted as a sort of “gesso” to ensure the paint didn’t sink into the porous wood and last a long time. I’m not sure if tinting it yellow made a difference, but I always prefer to paint on a non-white surface in case the canvas color peeks through the paint.
After priming the surface, I had to figure out how to transfer my digital mock up. I decided to use a projector and this is where I discovered my first bump in the road - my digital mock up was designed to fit in a much shorter width than the actual panels. This meant I needed to add more characters. Luckily I had a folder filled with reference models that I could reuse just by changing the face/hair/outfit slightly. Ultimately I’m really happy this mistake happened - I think the designs look much better with more people.
With the projector centered and secure, I was able to trace the design onto the panels with a dark brown house paint. I used house paint for everything until going into more detail with oil paint. (Tip: you can paint oil on top of water-based paints like acrylic and house paint, but you can’t paint water-based paints over oil!) I’m really glad I used the house paint, it made applying the paint much quicker (and cheaper) than if I had used acrylic paint from the tube. It was like painting a mural.
The second round of panels: St. Joseph
I repeated this process for the St. Joseph panels, as well. Block in the background first, then block in the characters with simple shapes and colors (think in terms of lights, shadows, and mid tones), adjust colors as necessary, then refine with oil paint.
This process seems easy enough, but in the moment, so many things can happen. With these paintings, the colors I’d picked out were totally wrong - they were much brighter and bluer than I wanted. I should’ve taken some time to remix my house paints together until I got the right color, but for some reason I’d decided to change the color and values with oil paints - and once the oil goes down, there’s no going back.
St. Joseph’s face was also a huge difficulty. In my digital mock up, I had achieved this blue-ish gray light on the top of his face and a warm light on the bottom emanating from Jesus. No matter what approach I tried, he kept looking strange and disembodied. I did some exploration on my iPad to see what else I could do, and decided to commit to just the warm light. The iPad also helped in determining anatomical issues with his eyes and mouth. This was by far the more difficult out of the two triptychs to do, but I’m so happy with the end result.
Easter Sneak Preview
These panels sat in an empty room in my building (thanks to my landlord, Matt) until Fr. Anthony was ready to take them. Just before Easter, we transferred them by UHaul to the church where they remained covered until an Easter sneak preview! I remember going to the 5am vigil and feeling so alive when the lights were flipped on and the parish sang a mighty Alleluia! I’ll never forget seeing my work contribute to the Mass. Even though they just leaned against the walls, they were striking and I was proud to see the impact they were making on my fellow parishioners.
To be continued…
The paintings are still in their permanent home, but not yet installed. According to Fr. Anthony, he has an engineer and a welder working on aluminum brackets to hold the panels to the wall. A mighty undertaking that I will be eager to see. Once they’re installed, I still have a few more finishing touches to add, then I dream of a big reveal night praising God for His goodness in guiding this project from beginning to end.
Stay tuned!
Behind the Scenes Videos
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
