Icon Diploma Student

For our third and final year, we each worked on a festal icon of our choice. We were invited to study different prototypes and design our own icon emphasising a particular aspect of the feast. I chose the Nativity, with a theme of praise and thanksgiving.

Given all the figures in this icon, I set it all out to fit on a large birch ply board. To get some practice first,  I painted a few colour studies in egg tempera on very thick, smooth watercolour paper then mounted them all in a work book.

I prefer working on the smaller individual studies as I found it a bit awkward to work on the large board – in many ways it wasn’t anywhere near large enough! I love how in frescos, the scenes are painted almost life size.

Church of St Nicholas Orphanos, Thessaloniki

The images which follow are mostly from my workbook.

For now though, I would just like to thank you once again for reading and for joining me as I make my way learning how to paint icons. The finished Nativity icon is available to buy from my Etsy shop

I wish you all a peaceful and blessed Christmas and will be back in touch in the New Year.

Ronnie

Saint Joseph