Scenic Cloths | Old Master

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Part two of the Intro to Scenic Course was recreating an Old Master painting using traditional cloth painting techniques. This is the one I was most excited for! I loved the process and the finished piece, but it floored me along the way.

The piece I chose was a crop of Caravaggio’s Judith Beheading Holofernes. I intend to hang it in my hallway, so strategically left the bloody head out of frame.

The technique is one tutor James Rowse learnt at the English National Ballet. The image is drawn using a grid and a scale rule on a stretched canvas, then under-painted to a monochrome value scale in white and finished with a series of crylic washes.

I can’t pretend it was an easy ride the whole way through, but now I’m out the other side and understand how it all ties together, I would definitely work like this again…. Now just to find a studio to fit a 2msq stretcher …

p.s. James runs the Cloth Course as a stand-alone 1 week project. More details on the Scenic Painters website