Three days on a Triptych
Icon Diploma Students taken at Aidan Hart’s May session 2015
Hello icon friends and class mates,
I’m just back from a three day intensive painting our standing/seated figures. I brought my gilded triptych centre panel already prepared with the image transferred so I could start to paint in class.
Transferring outline on to gessoed panel
Just to rewind a little, I photocopied my drawing on to tracing paper to locate the outline prior to water gilding. After gilding, I rubbed red ochre pigment into the back of the tracing paper/drawing itself (rather than using an intermediary sheet), and using a fine propelling pencil with a fairly hard lead, transferred the image on to the board.
Drawing of icon on tracing paper
Once all the main lines were transferred on to the board, a weak mix of pigment fixed the lines in place. I then began the underpainting and modelling of the garments.
First stage of underpainting
Aidan suggested that I used Red Ochre for the Blessed Virgin’s upper garment as it has some blue in it. I also used Lapiz Lazuli Dark, a beautiful natural blue and Ivory Black to deepen both colours; all pigments are from Cornelissen’s.
Ivory black and Red Ochre pigments
Both pigments are very strong so I mixed them up separately first, then blended. For the underpainting I used a lovely size 2 Roubloff 1010 kolinsky sable brush which I had recently ordered from Vesta-k. It has a really sharp point and holds the pigment well.
Building up the underpainting of the garments
I mixed black to the lapiz lazuli and red ochre in varying degrees to give depth to the underpainting. The deeper shadows are painted using a lot of black in the mix.
First layer of membrane applied using a wash of pure Lapiz lazuli over the underpainting.
Membranes on the garments
Pure red ochre and lapiz membranes washed over the underpainting with a very thin layer of lapiz washed over the red afterwards to unite the garments.
After several layers of membrane, I applied a nourishing layer of 20% egg 80% water and let it dry before going over the shadows and adding highlights. Aidan suggested fine layers of pure white dry-brushed over the membrane to give translucent layers of highlights.
The underpainting of the Christ Child is in English Yellow Ochre with a little Red Ochre added to model the form. The colours are painted quite densely as the garments will be gilded using shell gold assist. I understand from my class mate Lee that for the crispest, most gleaming gold lines, hand-made shell gold is the way to go – thanks Lee! Watch this space for adventures in making shell gold – I rang Wrights of Lymm for a couple of books of gold today!
Three days work
Thanks for reading.
Ronnie
Icon Diploma Student 
3 Responses to “Three days on a Triptych”
I am so envious of your getting to study with Aiden and your fellow classmates. Thank you for sharing your experience and expertise.
Hi Gay, always lovely to see your comments, thank you. Just spotted your own blog link – your work is wonderful! Really enjoyed listening to the first half of your talk too, and you are spot on when you say that the more we learn, the more we realise we still have so much more to learn! It’s late over here in UK so goodnight for now and all the best with your beautiful work. Ronnie
Ronnie,
Thank you for listening and reading. My husband is working out here in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and I truly did not expect to find and Icon friend. But, Anna Mae, a member of our church, is a long time student of the Prosepon School and we have great fun talking.
I am so looking forward to the shell gold experiments. I have spent much time and gold trying, but, alas, have not felt very successful.
God blessings be upon you,
Gay