Alfio Cavaleri
St. Michael’s Catholic Primary School, Meadowbank
A Fresh Start
I chose Luke 2:9-14 because I like the challenge of doing something that I am not familiar with. When I started this art work I knew what I was going to do, but the adventure was still incredibly hard in different places. My medium is acrylic paint and I used many paintings for body structure reference and then added my own style, such as Filippo Lippi’s ‘Madonna and Christ’ and Raphael’s ‘Madonna’. I painted the angel semi-realistic but with a twist of more saturated colour. I used ground colours on the shepherds to demonstrate that they are from Earth and the angel is from Heaven.
This scene is at night and my colours are very vibrant to show that Jesus is the light in the darkness. The stars are shining because the Scripture said, “The glory of the Lord shone round about them”. I painted the lamb facing the angel at first, but then I made it looking at the shepherd instead for a more dynamic pose. The shepherds are wearing the authentic clothing of Jesus’ times. They have dropped their sticks because they were afraid of the other worldly beings. I put some rocks in the foreground to show depth.
