Creating “The Weight of The World”
An inside look at creating a painting from Christ’s life.
As I approached the culmination of Christ’s mission, I had much to think about. It had to be more than just another event in my Interactive map project. www.gospelsmap.com. I had to try and create paintings of Christ’s suffering for our sins. I believe that suffering began in the garden of Gethsemane. The Gospel of Luke describes it as, “And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”
This scene has always struck me with emotion. It was with great emotion that I started working on creating an image of that event. I wanted to express the deep feelings I had for that moment in Christ’s ministry. I started by trying to describe it in words. I’ve started using generative AI to sketch concepts for my pictures. This allows me to go through dozens if not hundreds of versions of an image. It allows me to experiment with ideas of an event to find an image that resonates with my vision.
After many attempts, I finally found something that I felt I could work with. The image had him bent over in pain in the rain. I wanted to use the rain as a metaphor for the cleansing power of Christ’s miraculous gift to us. It is symbolic of washing our sins away.
