Bernadette Gockowski Art

I realized yesterday that Instagram wasn’t posting here for a lot of my posts. I’ll try to share pictures of all the posts that didn’t make it to Facebook! It’s a lot more fun on Instagram, however

These are two recent saint portraits I’ve done-originals sold but prints available on my website. Watercolor on paper

I asked God several years ago after I lost another unborn baby: “Why do you need one more tiny soul in heaven when you already have a “countless throng?” When it would be to me a whole universe, and change my life irrevocably? What do you do with all those little souls? Aren’t there already enough little flowers in the heavenly garden?”

Fast forward to now: I planned to paint this last book illustration completely differently, but as I raised the pencil to the page, in a flash this image came to my mind instead. I gasped out loud as I realized it was God responding to that question through this picture (which portrays a baby going to heaven). He said, “This is what I do with all those tiny souls. Not because I need them, but because I choose it to be so.”

This watercolor on paper illustration will be included in the children’s book “Jellybean” by Theoni Bell published which talks about the loss of an unborn baby in a family. I will see if I can get permission to make prints of this illustration for anyone that finds it comforting.

I’m thrilled to be able to offer this original watercolor portrait of St. Francis for sale on his feast day! The main thing I love about this piece is it’s “Franciscan brown” look.

I never cared for St. Francis because he is such a popular dude and I’m fond of the underdog/nerd type. Then I visited Assisi and saw the little church he started with and the place where he was held in prison by his own family and friends and now I know why he is so popular. I can’t imagine what it was like to be around him while he lived since even now, his holiness shines through the centuries!

You can purchase this original painting through my website. Only one available. Watercolor on paper matted with a white 11x14” mat.

This original watercolor of St. Therese will be mailed to my dear friend Sr. Agnes of St. John, who is professing her final vows today in a Dominican cloister in CT. I am unable to attend but I will send St. Therese in my place and Sister will be better for it!

I got a spot of paint on this and I never found a moment to get it off so I never offered it for sale. Now I know that little spot of paint was meant to keep it here long enough to send to the Dominicans for her vow day! Happy feast of St. Therese and happy final vows to Sr. Agnes of St. John! How I wish I could be there!

She was a bridesmaid in my wedding right before she entered the convent. Once upon a time, she was dating a man she thought she’d marry and I desperately wanted to go back to the convent. She said, “Hey Bern, imagine if one day YOU are married and I’M a nun!” Well, will you look at that…

For me, this is what gratitude looks like. Last spring was an experience I hope I never have to repeat-being pregnant with a 12 pound baby, then ending up in the NICU with a rough recovery. But my heavenly Mother took care of me.

I started a 54 day Rosary novena (which, wow, was very blessed btw) for an unrelated request during the last six weeks of Eddie’s pregnancy. I thought I was doing something great for God and was like “dang, Momma Mary, look at me! I’m amazing!”

The novena ended the day Eddie was born, which was completely unplanned. I said the last decade in the hospital.

I look back now and see that all those weeks unable to move out of a chair or lying in bed were made lighter by the rosaries I said. It gave me something to cling to, a mission to accomplish even when I couldn’t do anything else. I realize now that I wasn’t giving my prayers to God so much as He had given it to me in the time when he knew I would need it most.

So this is for my Mother Mary-my first painting after Eddie’s birth. And there are so many thoughts wrapped up in this piece I couldn’t explain them all.

“All These Things,” oil on canvas 16x20” This piece is available for purchase since I painted it not for commission but for myself. It needs a special home as it is close to my ❤️

“Gift” was one of the few paintings I made while pregnant with Eddie. I thought a lot oboist the idea of gift while I made it-what a gift Matthias (the subject) was after losing the previous two babies, and now that Eddie is here and out of NICU life, what a gift he is, too. (My baby who was so big at 12 pounds that he popped his own lung at birth!)

It is so hard to let go of art-making right now because of adjusting to a new baby, but when I think of it in terms of gift, it is transformative.

For art-interested people, this is watercolor on yupo.

“Increase and Decrease,” a watercolor commission of the young Jesus and St. John the Baptism, was one of the only paintings I did while pregnant with Eddie. I love commissions because they make you consider ideas that you wouldn’t otherwise even notice.

The owner of this piece saw a statue of this image somewhere and wanted this done for her boys’ bedroom. What a fun idea! I thought a lot about my boys while I painted this and how much they’ve changed me! (I know every Transformer’s name, for starters…)

I’m sure Jesus and SJB never got into trouble, but I bet they did know how to have adventures!

My husband thought the story of Alexandre Lenoir was so fascinating that he begged me to paint this portrait of him! I don’t have time to make a detailed story of this man, but worth looking up. During the French Revolution when the revolutionaries were destroying essentially everything historical, artistic, or cultural within their country, he went to extreme lengths to preserve artistic and historical objects from destruction. From collecting the bones of France’s old kings that had been exhumed and scattered to salvaging statues, the fruit of his efforts are the reason why we can still see and know them today. He used to paint bronze statues that were set to be melted down into bullets to look like marble or other non-usable materials. Once he was stabbed while trying to protect a statue from being destroyed.

I’m enjoying painting on yupo paper here, and high is essentially plastic paper. It’s a goofy and extremely different surface but I absolutely love it and you just might see me use it again!

What do you do when your daughter’s patron saint has next to zero images or items to collect? You make your own! Here’s my Saint Ida doll for my daughter Ida! It is not my usual mode of creating but the smiles and happiness it brought was worth it.
I love the intricate pattern I tried for this one.

Saint Ida was a wife and mother living in the 700’s in modern day Germany. She lived a life of holiness and wrote about the sanctity of marriage. Ida is pleased that her saint was royalty-perfect for her!

My favorite illustration of 2021 that I was blest to do! I am so excited for this book to come out in 2022 from by

I’ve been quiet here and artistically…mostly because I spend all free time napping through pregnancy-but I’m not troubled. There is a time for everything under the sun…

2021 Christmas cards are here! I got permission from the publisher to use my illustration to make cards (copyright is so weird!) and they said yes! This was my favorite illustration to make for the coming book and I am happy to be able to share it in this card. (Swipe to see a clearer detail of the image).

I only have a limited amount made so order quick on my website (in bio or www.bernadettegockowski.com). All orders placed before December 1 will receive a free 5x7” saint print.

I am still having fun painting one of my oldest son, but his turned out poorly. Probably because I was listening to shrieks of despair from my daughter in time out the whole time in the background. My husband said it looks “angry” and I certainly was! So we’ll redo that one.

I absolutely love child portraits….it is my favorite subject. I do accept commissions for custom paintings if you have a paint-able photo (no teeth please!! Or poses…)

I forgot how to paint for myself (anyone know what I’m talking about?) so I pulled up a random picture of my son and had fun for half an hour. What I love about watercolor is its ease and expression. You can’t get its essence any other way.

I am hoping to open up baby name cards again for the month of All Souls but I am getting back on my feet from six weeks of family illnesses that just wouldn’t stop and moving out of first trimester yuckies (yay!) More to come.

Anne of Green Gables fan alert! True admission-I hosted Anne of Green Gables tea parties in high school and I still dream of going to PEI and doing all the dorky Anne stuff.

I recently learned this about the authoress, Lucy Maud Montgomery: before WWI, she was praised and awarded and cherished for her Anne books. However, after the war, a darker, more nihilistic type of literature was popular and she was ridiculed for her rosy, cheerful, light works. Before the war she was lauded at literary gatherings, but afterwards, she was laughable. Joy was suddenly out of fashion. Happy, simple moments were hard to fathom.

But a hundred years later, her books are still made into movies, plays, and every kind of collectors items, and unless I am just poorly read, other post-war Canadian authors don’t have a similar claim to fame.

Why? Because at the end of the day, love and life can’t go out of style no matter how hard we try to believe it. Joy will always be attractive. Hope will always have power. L. M. Montgomery wrote with such joy not because she was foolish or shallow, but because she actually had experienced great suffering from childhood (she was an orphan, for starters) till the end of her life (her husband was severely mentally ill their entire marriage).

This is NOT to say I’m advocating we ignore painful, dark, or difficult subjects (because I also admire Flannery O’Connor’s writings). I’m not critiquing reflecting a on dark subjects-just advocating for joyful ones!

That’s why I am so excited about illustrating s book on planting a Marian garden for ! Is planting a garden in a white dress with a bow realistic? Probably not! But is it joyful and beautiful? I think so! There is that sense of timeless beauty in it that intrigues me.

This is an illustration from the book-but you’ll have to wait to read the text that accompanies it! Watercolor on paper

What is most comical to me about illustrating this book on Marian gardens for by is that the entire photo shoot I took for the models was in a church basement! I live in Minnesota and it was February (AKA we are all despairing in our houses neurotically drinking hot cocoa), so I used an empty church hall to take pictures of my son, niece, and sister in law. We had fake flowers, shovels, a real picnic, the works! The kids loved to pretend they were really outside (because they hadn’t been outside for some time without winter gear). All of the background in this book is 100% made up by me! I’ll admit this is challenging for me because I am a portrait artist primarily, but it is a great stretch for me. How I wish I could share the beautiful text that will accompany these images!

Why I named my son Matthias: today is St. Matthias’ feast day and I reminds me of why I named my sweet baby boy Matthias!

St. Matthias was t replacement apostle in the Book of Acts who took Judas’ place after the Resurrection. I’m not sure what he is the patron saint of, but in my mind he would be the patron saint of being second best, of being runner up, of being oddly chosen. I wonder if he felt awkward among the other apostles or worried he’d be tainted by taking Judas’ spot!

In my life I’ve often felt clumsy and oddly chosen (like becoming a nun (weird!) then leaving the convent (double weird!!). So I love to think about St. Matthias.

My little Matthias was a double rainbow baby, my second chance for life and joy after loss. So Matthias was the perfect name (and it also has my deceased brother Matt’s name tucked inside of it, too!)

Happy feast of St. Matthias to my second chance baby boy and anyone else who relates to this patron saint of second chances!

Ps. I painted this right before the photographer came to take pictures of our house to put on the market and it was still on the easel. So he is forever memorialized in our house pictures! 😂

I asked God who to paint next and it just had to be Dominic Savio, even though I (sadly) rarely think about him. I mentioned it to my husband and he said “Ah! It’s his feast day today!” So although this guy may be little, he knows how to make himself known!

I was thinking about all the junior high kids I used to work with when I was a youth minister as I painted this. I miss them very much and often wonder how they are doing. So many stories I could go on forever! I never thought I’d love the middle school age, but I totally do. My favorite was playing Musical Baby food. And Adoration.

St. Dominic Savio, pray for us!