adding white. may take it off again.

reinstating the features

Different virgins

Image of the virgin

In a fountain with Jesus on her lap

The water flows from the right

Life giving fountain.

Image of the Virgin – walled garden

She with her baby

She is the fruitful, nourishing walled garden

And on her face she ponders

She sorrows

She sits in a reverie

Burning bush

She is the burning bush

Her clothes a covered in branches of flame and fire

Red hot

Arms outreaching face inward smiling

The promise of the Old Testament

Never fading rose

She is the never fading rose

Her garment – creations plants and flowers

Fruitfully pollinating, blooming in their prime

Her garments overgrown

With fragrant fruitfulness

Baby in her arms.

Note to self when painting an icon.

The lettering to straighten up

Mary’s halo to erase -  half, no all of it

and repaint

Scraped and re-measured - the halos to tidy up

the gilding

with a knife.

This is the third major hack-back. At this point.

The onion gravy incident

The gold over-shoot

The wonky lettering

The flames, at least three different styles of flame

Mary’s head

Mary’s hands

Mary’s face

The mountain

Jesus.

Help.

The halos. 

There are so many things wrong with this element alone, 

the initial measuring, 

the over thick application on size making the gold wrinkly.

This is a pure and simple case

Of doing things, 

that is the steps

Of icon painting

In the wrong order.

Trying to use an accurate instrument on a wonky circle is challenging

Just do it right in the first place and all will be well.

A bit like quilting

The seams Have to be perfectly matched up, 

accurately cut, 

correctly pinned, 

expertly sewed

It all has to be right or it ruins the pattern

It messes the whole thing up.

The circle of the halo must be drawn accurately.

Icon III what I have learned

What I have learned from this.

Don’t set off with a half thought plan

Think through.

Make sure you have the right equipment.

Don’t paint in the kitchen.

Use good methods,

Well researched processes

and practiced techniques, practice a lot.

Work carefully and silently.

Do things in the right order

Pray a lot

Step back now and again

Take breaks to think and reflect

Have energy

Don’t be tired.

Three phases of the eclipse of the moon are for Mary’s robe

Our Lady of the Sign

Our Lady Platytera, Hogetria,

More Spacious than Heavens, God Bearer.

O Moon.

Those nights in my Stanningley studio

The huge windows a panoptican of the sky.

Clouds and the moon moving

From one window to the next, across a wall of three huge windows.

As I sit drawing

aspects as they pass

In white ink

In black ink

In silver ink

the moon phases on.

Our Lady of Guadalupe shines and emits her light.

the underpainting for my Lady Burning Bush