Creating Wrath

From the First Mark to the Final Explosion

Wrath didn't begin with an explosion.

It began quietly—with a sketch, an idea and an empty surface waiting to be disturbed.

What followed was a slow accumulation of colour, form and detail. The early stages establish the world in which Wrath will eventually exist: broad areas of colour are laid down, altered and strengthened as the composition begins to find its balance.

Then the process changes.

The brushes become smaller. The details multiply. Figures emerge from what were once only shapes. Tiny incidents begin occupying the larger scene and the painting becomes increasingly intense as I work deeper into its surface.

There is an interesting contradiction in creating a painting about Wrath.

The subject may be explosive, but painting it requires patience.

Nothing you see in the finished work arrived in a single burst. It was constructed slowly, one decision upon another, with each completed stage creating the foundation for the next.

These photographs allow you to watch that pressure build.

Don't worry about understanding every object or symbol yet. That's what the Wrath journal is for.

Here, I want to show you something different.

How an empty surface slowly became Wrath.

Original sketch for Wrath by Julia O'Sullivan, showing the first composition and early ideas for the symbolic oil painting.

1. The First Sketch — Trying to Contain Wrath

Wrath began, as these paintings so often do, with pencil and a great many thoughts competing for space.
At this point I am not interested in producing a beautiful drawing. I am trying to catch an idea before it escapes me—to establish the movement, relationships and overall structure that might eventually hold the painting together.
Wrath presented a particular problem.
How do you create something that feels uncontrolled without allowing the composition itself to become uncontrolled?
The sketch gave me somewhere to start answering that.
It is rough, exploratory and uncertain in places, exactly as it should be.
Before I can unleash the chaos, I have to give it somewhere to live.

Wrath composition transferred from the sketchbook onto the painting surface, establishing the main figures and structures before painting begins.

2. From Sketchbook to Surface — Wrath Gets Bigger

Moving the sketch onto the painting surface changes everything.
An idea that worked at sketchbook scale suddenly has to occupy a much larger space. Relationships alter. Empty areas become more obvious. Figures that seemed sufficiently dominant on paper can suddenly disappear.
This is where I begin judging the composition physically rather than imagining it.
Nothing has the protection of the sketchbook anymore.
If something doesn't work at this scale, it will have to change.
The idea has stopped being a drawing. It is waiting to become a painting.

First painted stage of Wrath, with loose areas of colour beginning to establish the atmosphere and overall composition.

3. The First Colour — Breaking the Calm

The first painted layer looks remarkably peaceful compared with where Wrath will eventually end up.
Broad areas of colour are placed quickly and loosely. I am establishing the overall temperature of the painting rather than concentrating on individual details.
This stage is about instinct.
Colour goes down, I respond to it, another area changes because of it, and slowly the white surface begins disappearing.
There is something I particularly enjoy about this moment.
All the detail is still ahead of me, but the painting has finally begun.

Early stage of the Wrath oil painting as stronger colour and developing forms begin to give structure to the composition.

4. Giving the Chaos Structure

Now I begin strengthening the divisions within the composition.
The different areas need to exist independently while still belonging to one painting. Shapes become firmer, contrasts begin appearing and the movement around the surface becomes easier to read.
Wrath will eventually contain an enormous amount of information, so the foundation has to be strong enough to support it.
If I rush this stage, I pay for it later.
This is controlled construction for something that will ultimately appear anything but controlled.

Wrath painting in progress with increasingly defined colour, contrast and tonal relationships across the large narrative scene.

5. Turning Up the Temperature

With every completed layer, the tentative first colours begin gaining confidence.
I start pushing certain areas harder while allowing others to remain quieter. Warm and cooler passages begin playing against one another, and the atmosphere starts changing.
I'm still not chasing the tiny details.
I'm looking at the painting from across the room as much as I am standing directly in front of it.
Does it pull me in?
Does my eye move?
Does one area overpower everything else?
Wrath is beginning to acquire an atmosphere before it acquires its final face.

Developing Wrath painting by Julia O'Sullivan as figures and surrounding forms become more distinct within the layered colour.

6. Something Begins to Stir

This is the point where the early looseness starts disappearing.
Figures become more substantial. Shapes that previously existed as suggestions begin asserting themselves. The different spaces within the painting start gaining their own identities.
I am also beginning to react more strongly to what is already on the surface.
That's an important change.
At the beginning I am imposing my idea upon the painting.
Eventually the painting begins making demands of its own.
This is where that conversation starts getting louder.

Wrath oil painting during the colour-building process, with deeper tones and stronger contrasts creating greater visual depth.

7. Pushing and Pulling

Now I begin creating greater depth.
Some areas need pushing backwards; others need pulling towards the viewer. Darker passages become stronger, highlights become more deliberate and the broad colour foundation starts acquiring greater complexity.
This involves a lot of stepping back.
Up close I can become completely absorbed by a small section, only to discover from a distance that I've made it far too important.
So I move constantly between the two views.
Wrath has to work from across the room before I earn the right to disappear into its details.

Wrath painting with its main colour foundation established, ready for the increasingly intricate stages of detailed painting.

8. The Calm Before the Detail

By this stage, the underlying painting has done its job.
The major colour relationships are established. The composition holds together. The figures have somewhere to exist and the different parts of the painting are beginning to communicate with one another.
This is the point where my way of working changes.
The broad decisions become smaller ones.
The brushes become smaller too.
And the hours begin disappearing into areas that might occupy only a few centimetres of canvas.
The foundation is finished. Now Wrath can begin revealing what it has been hiding.

First detailed stage of Wrath as broad painted forms begin developing into individual figures, objects, faces and textures.

9. Moving In — The Painting Starts to Bite

This is where I move closer to the surface.
Broad forms begin breaking apart into individual objects, faces, marks and textures. Areas that could previously be read in seconds start demanding a longer look.
And this is where the painting becomes much slower to produce.
A small section can take hours because I'm no longer simply asking whether the colour works.
I'm asking whether every addition belongs.
The strange thing about detail is that the more I add, the more I discover places that need something else.
Wrath starts feeding upon its own complexity.

Wrath painting developing greater intensity as smaller figures, objects and intricate narrative details emerge across the composition.

10. Pressure Building

Now the painting becomes considerably denser.
Faces acquire expressions. Objects become recognisable. Edges sharpen. Small incidents begin appearing within the larger composition.
This is also where separate parts of the painting start forming relationships I couldn't completely anticipate in the original sketch.
One detail can suddenly change how I read another.
Something insignificant becomes important.
Something I thought would dominate becomes quieter.
The painting isn't simply becoming more detailed. It is becoming more connected.

Advanced stage of Julia O'Sullivan's Wrath painting, with increasingly precise details and individual elements filling the composition.

11. Controlled Chaos

By now, there are very few places left to hide.
The broad brushwork of the beginning has been buried beneath months of increasingly precise decisions.
I'm moving continually around the surface—strengthening something here, softening something there, repeating a colour elsewhere, sharpening an expression or questioning whether another addition is really necessary.
This is probably the stage at which Wrath looks most chaotic.
But ironically, it is also where I have to exercise the most control.
Every element is competing for attention.
My job is to make sure they argue without everybody shouting at once.

Completed Wrath oil painting by Julia O'Sullivan from the Seven Deadly Sins collection, filled with intricate figures, symbolism and layered narrative detail.

12. The Final Layer - Letting Wrath Go

Finishing a painting like this is surprisingly difficult.
There isn't a moment when the painting announces that it is complete.
I have to decide.
I look for unresolved areas. I move around the surface correcting tiny things that most people may never consciously notice. I strengthen what needs strengthening and, equally importantly, resist interfering with areas that already work.
Eventually I reach the point where another mark isn't improving the painting.
It is simply another mark.
That's when I stop.
Not because I've exhausted everything that could possibly be said about Wrath.
Quite the opposite.
I've finally created the painting that can begin saying it for me.

When Wrath Finally Emerged

There is something strange about reaching the end of a painting that has taken so long to build.

Wrath didn't arrive fully formed.

It accumulated.

The first marks established somewhere for it to exist. Colour gave it atmosphere. Figures found their positions. Ideas changed, disappeared or became more important than I had originally intended. Then came the detail—the stage where I could begin tightening everything until all those separate decisions finally belonged to the same world.

Looking back through these photographs now is almost like watching the painting gather pressure.

And that's rather appropriate for Wrath.

Because the finished work may appear to capture one explosive moment, but the painting itself was anything but instantaneous.

It was built slowly.

Layer upon layer.

Decision upon decision.

Question upon question.

Until eventually there was nothing more I wanted to add, remove or argue with.

The brush could finally stop.

But the questions behind Wrath didn't.

Those belong to the journal.

You've watched Wrath being created. Now discover why it became what it did.

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Rare - Unusual - Unforgettable

Creating Wrath

From the First Mark to the Final Explosion

When Wrath Finally Emerged

Read Behind Wrath →

Creating Wrath

From the First Mark to the Final Explosion

When Wrath Finally Emerged

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Read Behind Wrath →