The Last Supper

Last Supper for St.Paul's Church

How it all started.

My wife belong to St. Paul. the Apostle Church. A bit more than three years ago a lady member of the church suggested to Father Bryan that it would be marvellous to have a painting of the 'Last Supper' above the sanctuary, the other ladies thought it was a good idea so I was approached via my wife. After some thought given to the matter and thinking it would not take too long I readily agreed.

So sketching started to appear in my drawing book I also discussed the subject with a dear friend of mine a church of England vicar, and slowing the ideas formed but also the enormity of the task suddenly hit me. The first obstacle the size and shape long and thin. Then should the figures be large or small, should they be round a table or sitting on the floor. In the end I chose fairly large figures around a table. then came the figures how to chose, as figures from imagination, thirteen of them would probably end up similar. Now who to chose well the figure of Christ was fairly easy as my eldest son has long hair and I wanted to represent Christ with long hair, then I thought of various friends and also asked Father about sitters volunteer. Thus I had a painter friend, as well as a photographer, a fisherman, a farmer, a teacher, one priest as I felt that Father Storey was part of the church and was his project, also in there was a church of England vicar (posthumous) two gardeners, one of which was my youngest son, a regular young Romanian visitor who stays with Father Storey and has become part of St.Paul's community and of course the painting could not be done without Alan Dishman, deceased, beloved member of the church. Thus without thinking I felt I had a good representation of different professions.

So now I had my sitters. Now the individual oil sketches began. that alone took quite a while as I had to fit it all within my work schedule and of course the sitter. I also fiddled about with plasticine models too to give me the grouping.

When all is done to my satisfaction about eighteen months later, I was ready to order and prepare the canvas which is stuck on board.

Then the painting proper began and took me another eighteen months to complete.

And so on the 23rd of December 2007 I told Chantale that it is finished.

I am very pleased with the finished picture and would like to thank all my sitters for their patience. Also my female friend who kindly sat for Christ hands as my son was abroad at the time!

Study nine	Oil sketch of the figure of Christ
Study one	Study six
Study two	Study seven
Study three	Small plasticine model
study four	Preparing canvas
study five	Preparing canvas 2
Study eight	"first oil sketch"
Nicholas working on the figure of Christ	Where the figure of Christ will be on the final board.

Painting advancing	A bit more done
Another study	Almost finished still needs work on it

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Finished Painting

Click here to see the local the regional article that started the enormous interest in the picture

20/01/08

if you go into Google search engine and type Last Supper by N St. John Rosse you will see the latest articles that have appeared in the various papers . It has been very well covered by local, regional and national media

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The painting is hung in the church with the help of builder carpenter Andrew Cook, his mate Brian Anderson, our son Alexandre and scaffolding provided by George Climo.

Cards of the Last Supper will be available in due course.

ST.PAUL THE APOSTLE CATHOLIC CHURCH.TINTAGEL Parish Contacts(1)

NOVEMBER 2008

'The Last Supper is now also adoring the new Eucharistic renewal books site

and we are proud to be associated with it

http://eucharisticrenewal.org/