Happy Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist! He who prophesied the Christ in the Womb! Our Church is called St. John the Baptist so it is a particular special feast for us. It was also the name one of the Churches that St. Benedict started. Why? Because St. John the Baptist (along with Elijah and Moses) is a type or model of the Monk. Jesus of course is himself the Ideal Monk to follow, in whom all true monks follow the example of. Of course I'm talking Christian Catholic Monks. St. John the Baptist, Pray for Us!
This was inspired by the artwork of AnneliesDraws. She has an amazing skills with gouache and colored pencils. I don't have gouache paints and so I tried making an illustration using my watercolor paints. I tried increasing the opacity of the watercolor to almost the same as of the gouache paints.
By the way, this is her instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/anneliesdraws
Emotionally speaking, this is definitely the hardest pieces I've made so far. On July 18th, 2019, an arson attack on Kyoto Animation's Studio 1 left 36 dead and 34 injured, one of the deadliest mass casualty incidents in Japan since the end of WWII. KyoAni has some of the best working conditions in the industry and have made some of the most iconic anime to date, including Clannad, A Silent Voice, and the show that got me started on anime, Violet Evergarden (as seen in this drawing). I sent this drawing to them through their website, and there's a good chance it was displayed along with thousands of other fan submissions in Kyoto this past November as part of a public memorial service. While this was a tragic blow to the company and community, they're healing and getting back to their feet, and I can't wait to see what they create next.
