Welcome back to the last of this series – the final stage of painting the face where everything (hopefully) all comes together with some final rose tints, deep shadow lines and snow highlights….
The warm rose tints have been applied here
Hints of rose are applied to the lips (just the upper middle part – leave shadows in the corners), cheeks, side and lower tip of the nose, crease of the upper eye, the lower part of chin and a triangular shape in the corner of the eye. Take care to apply in a thin wash blending with care.
Rose tints can be applied as a wash on the face between shaded areas and highlights. Options for the rose red are: a. Yellow Ochre Light (Maimeri) with a pinch of English Red Light b. Yellow Ochre Light (Maimeri) and vermilion.
The dark raw umber details and hairline shadow still need to be applied..
Eyes: Most of the eye whites are filled with the shadow tones and painted in two stages. The first is to mix raw umber and white – not using too much white or it becomes stark and opaque. Note the crescent shape of the eye and that the grey appears only on one side of the eye – the side opposite the direction that the face is looking. Leave the other side of the eye in the underpainting – something that I’ve completely overlooked with this one! Then apply the white crescent highlights around the iris. The pupil and edges of iris are black.
Dark raw umber shadows applied to lip creases, eye lids, ears, brow and hair line
Adding the red line under the chin gives a glow. I add the final white ‘snow’ highlights last of all – if they look too stark, add a wash of French Ochre. At the final stage, add a glaze of dilute egg stock over the entire face.
Done, but not finished! Time to add the ribbons and hair band, add highlights to the garments and finish details of jewels then finally to add the name.
The background paint will be well and truly dry by this time and will be a lot easier to apply the lettering. I draw the lettering out on paper then trace it on. I rub white pigment into the back of the tracing paper and trace that down on the icon. This leaves a faint outline of the name which I can paint over with white egg tempera using a fairly stong blend of white to get a creamy consistency.
I fit a picture cord to the back with a small certificate of authenticity.
In wrapping up this mini- series, I’d like to wish you and yours a very happy and peaceful Christmas and as always, thank you for joining me here.
First thin layers of highlights applied to define the main forms of the face.
Hello again!
It’s time to add some face highlights. I’ve been looking through my old class notes (from 2014) and found some really helpful reminders. Aidan (Hart) recommends that we should aim to apply 3 (but no more than 4) layers of highlights – easier said than done!
First layer of face highlights: Start by mixing plenty of the golden yellow (you don’t want to run out as it is very hard to remix the same shade). Use a light yellow which brightens gradually by approx. 20% with each layer. Mix yellow ochre light (Maimeri) and a touch of Titanium White. Paint sample swatches to see the contrasts as you want to avoid a big change such as 50%. The photo below shows me trying to find the 20% difference – I will keep trying! It might also help to use a palette with bigger dimples but this was for a different smaller icon.
Mix the white separately before adding to the yellow in very small quantities.
Include a brush of highlight over the lower lip.
You can’t tell if it is the right colour until you have applied a thin layer and let it dry. Start very lightly on the ear. Wait till it dries before you proceed with the colour. You are aiming for 20% lighter than the membrane layer.
Paint with accuracy. Look carefully 2 or 3 times before you begin. Use this opportunity to correct your underpainting.
With a size 3 brush, (maybe size 2), apply the paint thinly over the higher parts of the face, and feather out with dry brush technique. Use a watered down mix of your colour to feather out edges, but brush out most of the paint on your testing paper first. Build up layers thinly and watch out for puddling!
At this stage the layers have got quite patchy – a wash of ochre havanna will blend this.
Leave the eyes till a later stage, but include the flesh around them.
Tip: Look for curves and equally, don’t round up sharp corners.
Leave space around the highlights so the mid tone underpainting remains. Wait till it dries then apply another layer of the same mix as it will dry close to the colour of the membrane. Don’t cover all of the membrane.
Make sure the brow bone is deep. Keep the angles of the brow. Mind the direction of your brush strokes and spread the brush to feather out.
Second layer: Make sure first layer has properly dried. Look closely at the original and identify the high points of the eyebrows, forehead, nose, cheeks, chin, ears. Note the direction of the face. Make sure you highlight the upper cheekbone to keep the width of the cheekbone next to the eye.
Add a little more white to your mix and test.
Tip: if you go too light too soon, add a thin warm glaze of Italian Warm ochre (French Havanna is very similar). It also acts a harmonising layer when all the highlights (except the ‘snow’) have been applied.
‘No confusion, no division’.
Third layer of highlights Repeat the process over a smaller area. Be careful to look closely at the high points. The paint has more white and is more opaque. Again, be careful to apply thinly, not too much water, feather out edges and build up in layers. If it looks too white, add a warm glaze.
Tip: avoid sudden changes of depth or contrast. Shading should all be gradual.
These two photos show that I’ve made a start on the eyes but I will cover the finishing details in my next post. I find the final highlights quite tricky and nearly always go adrift. That said I now leave the work for a week or so and come back to it with fresh eyes. I take a black and white photo and see where it’s out of balance. Or I cover the face with paper and start work building up the garments. There’s always plenty to work on!
I hope to be back soon to finish this sequence of posts and the final ‘snow’ highlights on the face but in the meantime, wishing you a peaceful and happy Advent.
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.
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.
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.
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…
A warm welcome and thanks to new subscribers – you’ve nudged me to write! It’s been a while since I painted an icon so I thought I’d write a reminder to guide myself and maybe encourage others to pick up the brush again.
I’m looking back on the process of painting this icon of Archangel Michael (9.5 x 7” on 1” birch ply) looking in particular at the face painting stages with a summary of the earlier steps.
Working from my drawing of this icon, I transferred the key lines using tracing paper. I rubbed a pinch of deep red ochre pigment into the back of the paper with cotton wool, then located the tracing paper image on to the icon board and taped it top and bottom. Using a hard pencil (H or 2H) I traced the lines to transfer the image on to the gesso.
Egg stock in the left dimple and a diluted mix alongside for glazing .
Next step is to fix the powdery lines to the gesso by painting over them with a dilute mix of red ochre. My lines look a bit heavy-handed (see below) but the underpainting should be quite definite to withstand at least six or seven membrane layers.
Going right back to basics here: the egg stock is made up of 50% egg yolk, 25% distilled water and 25% alcohol (gin or vodka). A diluted mix of 20% egg stock and 80% water is used for thinning the paint/glazing. When mixing paint, add the pigment to the stock until it reaches consistency of thin cream. This mix can then be further watered down to get thin layers.
Definite underpainting lines – important to get these in the right place at this stage! Note the small piece of card taped in place to protect gesso from compass point.Masking film applied either side of halo.
When the key lines are in place it’s time to water gild the halo. Water (and oil) gilding needs a chapter, let alone a single post! I’ve covered much of this technique in previous posts but a helpful tip is to apply liquid masking film (I use Winsor & Newton) before gilding. I apply it around the edges of the bole in a band of about ¼” (5mm). Gold sticks to gesso during the gilding process and it can be fiddly to remove.
Applying background in thin layers
After burnishing the gold, I paint the background surrounding the halo before starting on the face. To get a crisp line for the halo, the compass line sits best on bone-dry tempera so I leave the background at least overnight. I use a compass with scribing nib attachment for the line around the halo. I draw the halo line before painting the face to avoid placing the compass point into the finished face. I tape a small piece of card to the centre of the halo to protect the gesso from the compass point.
Compass with the adjustable ink attachment
To paint the halo line I put a few drops of a fairly strong mix of white titanium (single cream consistency) into the side of the nib using a brush to transfer the paint. Dipping the nib directly into the paint usually leads to blobs!
Gilding, background and halo line all in place – ready to start work on the face
Make sure all the features are where you want them to be. It’s a lot easier to move them at this stage! I double check my work by taking photos with my phone and zooming in/out to look again.
Aidan’s Tip: ‘Remember to paint with Distinction and Unity – there is no unity without distinction and no distinction without relationship’.
After gilding, I apply a wash of dilute egg stock (10% egg stock 90% water) to seal the gesso using a squirrel mop brush. This offers an even surface for painting over. I apply these thin coats throughout the process – usually when I’m wrapping up the day’s painting session.
Aidan’s Tip: Remove any pigment which has strayed on to the gilding with a dry cotton bud. Do this as soon as possible as clay pigments set hard and will lift off the gold.
Once the lines are in place then the underpainting and modelling of the face begins (I’ve used a different icon undepainting for this example). I’ve learnt that it’s important to spend time on this stage. Keep your drawing/icon master image close to refer to. Using Avana pigment, paint the form of the face evenly in thin layers ensuring that line weights vary in the appropriate places. For example, brows are thicker, eye socket line is light, the upper brow dense and the lower lid light. The underpainting should be clear and well shaded enough to withstand 6-7 membrane layers.
Building up the underpainting (a different icon)
Larger and more dominant shapes need stronger modelling whilst minor/ shallow forms are best left to be modelled by highlights.
Other colours can be used for underpainting skin tones such as Yellow Maimeri mixed with a little Ivory Black. Also 80% terre verte and 20% yellow ochre (Maimeri light). It’s worth experimenting to see the difference each combination makes.
I cut a paper mask to protect all the other areas where I’m not working.
When the underpainting is in place I apply a very thin wash of avana over the face and leave it. The longer the better! Applying the membrane can be a bit tricky as it’s easy to make ‘holes’ during the process and disrupt the underpainting. If the underpainting has tempered/dried for at least a week it’s more stable to work over. Again not forgetting I live in cool, damp Scotland!
My next post will be about applying the membrane layers and deepening the shadows but in the meantime, if you’d like to see the finished icon for encouragement – it’s over here…
Thanks for reading and all the best with your own icon painting!
When I completed this icon back in 2018, I was unaware of the names of the angels standing behind the three most prominent archangels. However, when looking up old notes and running a few google searches, I’ve since discovered that similar icon examples show that the figures standing directly behind are as follows: to the left are Jegudiel and Selaphiel and on the right hand side, Uriel and Barachiel.
To follow on from the last blog post, I’d like to look at the stages of painting the angel faces. There’s a lot of them! The prototype that I’m referring to is a 19th century Russian icon The faces are captivating.
When painting a new icon, I start by making my own drawing to work from.
The underpainting stage looks quite rough and clunky but it helps to get strong definition at this stage.
Jegudiel (left) and Michael (right)Jegudiel with darkened shadows under chin, sides of lips and along the hairlineArchangel GabrielArchangel RaphaelSeveral layers of the red and yellow ochre membrane appliedMembranes added to all the faces. The face underpaintings have almost disappeared!
It’s somewhere at the stage when the first few layers of highlights go on that you think the face is nothing as you had intended!
These are small faces to paint so every brush move counts. Taking a black and white photo and printing it out at a larger size helps as then I take a pencil/crayon and work over it by referring back to my drawing and observing where I need to make changes.
Finished face of Archangel RaphaelFinished faces of Archangel Gabriel to the front with Uriel and Barachiel behindArchangel Michael to the front, Jegudiel and Selaphiel behind
This icon is now spoken for and soon will be making its way to a loving home.
Just a reminder that I’m holding a ten year anniversary sale on all my remaining icons listed here. As soon as someone makes an enquiry, I place it on hold and remove it from the list. I’m happy to give people time to consider.
As always, thanks for reading and happy icon painting.
When painting a large icon, it helps to try and progress things evenly across the panel. I’d like to show you how I approached this in this post but also want to focus on the steps taken as I painted the Christ Child at the heart of this icon. I also have some exciting news… more about that at the end of this post.
An icon with so many figures and halos can be quite tricky to paint so it’s worth pausing to think about the sequence of work. Top of the list is to remove the protective pads as soon as I can; they can leave a sticky residue if left on too long.
Small pieces of card taped to the gesso as protection pads.
Before I scribe defining lines around the halos, a certain amount of painting needs to be done around them first. The halo lines are adjacent to the hair of neighbouring angels and central the blue ring also touches the halos of the Seraphim. These need to be painted and allowed time to thoroughly dry out. I’ve found that when scribing lines on paint that hasn’t dried or ‘tempered’ for a day or so tends to spread.
Small triangles of hair meet edges of halos – better painted before the halo lines are scribed
At the centre of this icon is the young Christ with one hand raised in blessing and the other holding a scroll. The young boy is wearing a rich vermillion cloak and sash, radiating a gold (yellow ochre maimeri) light contained in an outer circle of seraphim. I decided not to paint all the garments surrounding the ring as I thought I would be able to work fairly neatly up to these edges.
I referred back to my initial drawing to trace and transcribe the face.
I have learnt to be very careful with strong lines when underpainting a face – they can be hard to integrate later. Better to have just a few key lines in the right places as reference points to move from then shade in thin layers, building up depth gradually around the cheeks, below chin and brow, to the side of nose and under the hairline.
Below you can see I’m building up all the faces at the same time, gradually deeping the shading. I’ve used yellow ochre maimeri and a tiny dash of ivory black to give a greenish yellow underpainting. You can also use Terre Verte for underpainting faces but this pigment can be quite sticky for painting small fine facial details.
It’s worth going quite dark with the shading – it will all get held together by the membrane layers. Don’t forget to add a few glazes of your egg mix – diluted with a few drops of water and let it dry before you add the membrane. These are tiny details but they help bring it all together. The egg seals the gesso below to provide an even surface for the next layers.
I’ve used English Red Ochre light and Yello Maimeri for the membrane layers. Add just enough membranes to make out the features. At this stage I leave things for at least a week and work on other areas. This is only something I’ve learnt. The more this layer is left to temper, the easier it is for you to correct mistakes without making a hole back to the gesso. You can read about that one here!
Darkening shadows and defining the features with ochre avana.
Building up highlights with very thin layers of yellow maimeri mixed with titanium white.
If at any time the highlights look too stark, add a few thin layers of French Ochre Havanna to even things out.
Finally, add whites of eyes, black pupils and eyelids, the lettering, ribbons, shell gold and fine jewel details on the garments.
Now for that exciting news… This year I’m celebrating ten years of icon painting and sharing my work here on this blog. As a big thank you for your company and comments over the years I am offering ALL my icons (including this one) in stock listed here at half price for the month of February. This offer will not be found on any social media page as it is excusive to all my readers, past icon buyers, friends and family. Postage will be added at cost and the icons will be sold on a first come first served basis – please get in touch if you would like one.
As always, thank you for reading and happy icon painting!
As September gives way into darker evenings and mornings, it pulls back many memories of the ancestral hearth for our family. It’s a time of remembering our loved ones and lighting a candle. It is the time to honour the Archangels on the feast of Michaelmas.
This was a triptych which I painted for my sister – she had seen a small version years ago and loved the way the doors opened up for the big reveal and had wondered if I could ever paint one for her one day. I’m so glad I did!
The images for these two Archangels which stand either side of the Blessed Mother and the Christ Child are based on the frescoes of Chora in Istanbul, seen high up in the dome.
I’ve written about this triptych previously in this blog but for this evening, I wanted to include a sequence of work-in-progress photos of an icon which I painted on watercolour paper of Archangel Gabriel.
If you haven’t got a gessoed board ready prepared, some heavy 300-400gsm+ smooth hot pressed watercolour paper is a really beautiful surface to work on. If you can find cotton content paper then it will be archival and long lasting in the right conditions.
You will see from this photo that I’ve used a pencil grid to help draw the image – don’t hesitate to use all the help you can get as you go along. Turning the master image upside down to refer to also helps you to tune into the areas of light and shade, angles/directions, hard and soft edges and so on.
I have under-painted the face in the pigment Terre Verte. You could also use Yellow Maimeri and ivory black to get a different green.
I have used a mix of English Red Deep and French Ochre Havanna for the hair, wings and robes.
This is a thin wash of Yellow Ochre Maimeri and a touch of Red Ochre light for the membrane over the skin. The red ochres are really strong pigments so you will only need a diluted drop of it for warmth.
Adding the facial highlights in thin layers of Yellow ochre Maimeri and titanium whiteBuilding up very thin layers to model the faceAdding shell gold to the wings
You can see this icon completed and framed together with a few other icons here on my Etsy shop page.
Final details of the red line around the halo and ribbons to denote listening
And finally to close this post on the Triptych – here it is complete in the UK and ready to fly to Australia – with my Aussie sis joining in a wee family gathering!
Triptych in UK – sister in Aus! Sisters!
In the meantime, trusting you all into the care of our celestial helpers.
As I said in my previous post, I felt that this icon wasn’t quite complete. It wasn’t just the modelling and highlights on Archangel Michael’s face – but I felt it lacked presence. Since I had glazed the entire icon, I was prepared to work on it as a whole. I started with the face and applied thin layers of French Ochre Havanna, that lovely warm pigment that blends and evens out the different flesh tones.
Face before work beganFace with several washes of French Ochre HavannaDeepening the shading and featuresFrom left to right – work in progress to revisit the modelling of the face.
I’ve learnt to leave some time between the underpainting of the face and applying the highlights. Letting the new paint rest for a few days works well as it is too easy to make holes in the layers when it is fresh. This is a small face, only 2.5cm brow to chin, so I need to be careful!
In the meantime, I had made a decision to extend the dark skies beyond the circle to balance the mountain area. The beauty of well-tempered paint is that it forms quite a hard surface after a year or so. With the dilute egg glaze acting as an isolating layer, I could easily remove the new paint if it didn’t look right. I had also decided to firm up the border in a deep red ochre.
First wash of IndigoI painted a small area between the circle and the hills and immediately liked the depth. Here’s a reminder of how the icon looked before I began. As I was painting, the sun glanced off a small glass window ornament and I had a rainbow dancing over the icon – a lovely moment. I painted over the lettering and added a wash of indigo behind the dragon, to add depth. The middle stages of icon painting can look quite messy but that all settles as the layers are added.
Here you can see the red letters disappearing behind the indigo.
Using tracing paper with some titanium white pigment rubbed into the back, I transcribed the lettering and painted it back on.
The white pigment brushed off when it was all dry.
Going back to the face, I added the highlights back in, gave the hair a glaze of red ochre deep and a touch of ivory black and added the missing ribbons which signify listening.
I then added a wash of lapiz lazuli over the cloak and inner ring.
Final touch was to take the liner pen and draw the lines back crisply over the new red border. All in all, about week’s work but I was much happier with it!
You can see more details of the finished icon here and as always, thanks for reading!
Have you ever looked back on something you’ve done and thought there was something not quite right, but didn’t know what to do about it? I have a suggestion. Leave it for a few years, get on with learning, developing and practicing and then revisit it with fresh eyes and a bit of courage to dive in and make the changes as you see fit.
The icon above shows part of the completed icon ready to go to an exhibition in York in Spring of 2018.
At the time, I was happy with the composition, content and colours of this icon of Archangel Michael. It was one I had given a lot of thought to – I wanted to paint an icon to show the story of how many centuries ago, the sisters in the Bar Convent, York, had called upon Archangel Michael’s help during a mob riot and their small community was under threat. The Archangel appeared on the roof of the convent – astride a white horse – and the mob fled.
Bar Convent, Blossom St, York
The Bar Convent, Blossom Street, York was my school between 1971-4. It has joined the archives on my Drawing the Street project along with the buildings opposite, including Blossom Street Gallery where I held an exhibition called ‘A Street of Angels’ back in Spring 2018.
The icon was based on apocalypse protoypes which refer to the Book of Revelation where ‘There was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon’. I felt it was a powerful example to reflect the experience that the sisters had at that time. I looked up a number of apocolypes protoytpes to work out my own version.
Here’s my drawing – full size at 53 x 42 cm.
Detail shows Blossom Street buildings in disarray. A small gilded heart strikes the dragon’s mouth.
All that said, whenever I looked at the icon, I felt that it wasn’t quite complete. I wasn’t happy with Archangel Michael’s face – the light/modelling of his forehead wasn’t handled well and so I set myself up to just work over the face. I started by waking up the surface using a thin glaze one 1 part egg mix to 10 parts water – but decided to glaze over the entire icon (apart from the gilding) to give myself room to work on it as a whole. I applied several glazes and left it to settle for a few days.
I will continue with the decisions and steps taken in the next post as I realised there were a few other things that didn’t feel right. If you have read this far and want to see how it turned out – you can see it here.
Stay well and thank you for reading and all the kind comments:-)
I recently unwrapped a pair of standing angel icons which I painted three years ago for the exhibition ‘A Street of Angels’ in York at Blossom Street Gallery. I remember thinking that the faces weren’t quite right but time had run out as we were relocating up to Scotland and so they went on display, got packed away afterwards and that was that.
Life has taken quite a turn since and I don’t get much time to paint icons however I have committed to revisiting and finishing off all the icons that had things that I considered weren’t quite right. I thought that it would be worth sharing how I get along with this exercise as it is a bit of an adventure!
Here are the two icons before I started work on them. It was Archangel Raphael’s expression that I thought needed most work. It’s hard to tell from these photos but the blending was a bit heavy handed and if I was to refresh one, then I should work on them both for consistency.
Archangel MichaelArchangel Raphael
First thing was to ‘wake up’ the surface with several coats of an egg glaze. Using the tempera mix, I made a glaze with about 1 drop of egg to 10 drops of water. I also made a protective paper cover for the gilding and taped it down. Looking at these photos, the faces don’t seem so bad, but they were just not properly finished.
I let the glazes settle for a few days, then using the wonderful pigment French Ochre Havanna, I applied three or four glazes over the face. This pigment is warm and a great one to calm down clumsy highlights. These faces are fairly small, about 2cm from hairline to chin, so I used fine brushes for the details.
Applying glazes over the entire face.
Glazes of French Ochre Havanna even out the skin tones and deepen the gold mid tones. I also applied a few washes of English Red Ochre Light over the hair to deepen the mid-tones so I could tidy up the modelling. I’ve found that leaving the glazes to dry overnight means less likelihood of making holes in it when applying the next layers.
I’m putting on the darker tones here, with a 1010 kolinsky sable brush. I’ve mixed some English yellow ochre, raw umber and ivory black. I also used Ochre Avana which is another really versatile pigment. I have deepened the hair line and then used a thin egg glaze to feather and blend away the hard lines next to the brow. To get the highlights, I used Yellow Maimeri and titanium white, but I also added a small amount of French Havanna to keep the highlights a warm gold. I mix small quantities in this ceramic palette which comes with a lid – perfect to stop them drying out and keep the cats off!
Painting on the first layer of face highlights
I find that taking photos of my work as I go along helps as I can zoom in and see exactly where I need to tidy up. The other thing I do now is to add very thin glazes of ochre havanna as it helps with blending especially after I have been remodelling.
I added highlights in thin, thin layers, softened and shaped the eyebrows, moved the brow highlights to the right, eased back the highlights on the right of the neck, added vermillion to the nose tip, upper lip, under the chin and inner eye. Added white highlights to the eyes, with the sides of the eyes a grey mixed with black and white. Added a very thin glaze of vermillion to warm the cheeks. Then added the hair highlights back and added the ribbons which I had missed altogether. The finished face is on the left. I’m happy with this as the expression is much kinder! You can see the finished icon in my Etsy shop.
I hope that this is helpful in some way with your own icon painting. Thank you to everyone who has followed this blog during the quiet years, but I will go through the same process with Archangel Raphael in my next post.
Icon Diploma Student 