Archangel Michael – Part 2

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Welcome back to this reminder to myself as to how I painted this icon of Archangel Michael. By this time, the underpainting should be dry and stable ready for the membrane layers. 

These layers give the middle tone and I’ve found them quite tricky and easy to go wrong! I’ve learnt that if I smear or smudge it at any stage, just leave it! Go have a cup of tea and wait till the layer has fully dried and only then paint over it. If I do try and tidy up too soon – it leads to patchy holes back to the gesso.  

Using Yellow Ochre light (Maimeri) and a little Vermillion or English Red Ochre light and a touch of Titanium White, mix up a warm golden orange. French Ochre Havannah is another favourite of mine for the membrane. Go easy with the white as it’s a strong pigment. It’s best to mix it up separately then add a dash with the tip of your brush until you get a warm rich red gold. Paint out samples of the colour on some paper to see how it looks.  

Deepening the layers of the membrane onthe face of icon painting
Build up layers until you have a rich deep gold for the mid tones.

With a large squirrel mop held at 45 degrees or less to the board, not upright, sweep a light, even wash of membrane colour over the face but NOT the hair. Apply at least 4 or 5 membranes until you get a rich even golden colour. This is where you see how important it is to have a strong underpainting. If there are area on the membrane which are patchy, apply another layer and puddle in extra pigment where thin. 

Adding a thin layer of egg stock over the hair
I’ve added a glaze over the hair to seal the bare gesso

When the membranes are complete, you can apply a separating glaze of 10% egg, 90% water.

Aidan’s Tip: Go easy with the dilute egg stock mix – too much egg leaves a slippery surface which is hard to paint on.

Next stage is to work to deepen the shadows using Avana and a dash of ivory black or raw umber dark.

Defining the icon features with darkened tempera painting
Modelling the shape of the face with the darker layers

Again, building the forms up in thin layers – deepen the upper and lower eye sockets, the sides of the nose, the cheeks, jaw and hair lines. Deepen the upper lip, the shadow below the nose tip, the mouth meeting line, the corners of the mouth and the dip below the lower lip and round the chin.  Model the shape of the neck and where the garments leave a shadow. Last of all, finish the shadows with a thin glaze of dilute egg stock and leave it at least overnight.

Aidan’s Tip: If you get a paintbrush hair (or cat hair!) in the mix leave it alone until the paint is dry, then brush it off. It’s really easy to mess up at this stage and damaging the underpainting.

That’s all for this post…to be continued with adding the highlights.

In the meantime, if you’d like to see the finished icon for encouragement – it’s over here…

Thanks for reading,

Ronnie 🙂

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