Well, it has been several months since I've started icon "writing" (painting), and I making good progress in some ways, and not so good progress in other ways. So far I have done five icons, and am working on my sixth. The most difficult parts about it for me are:
1) etching the image into the wood - it is hard to get precise lines at first... sometimes the awl gets away from you, and a line gets unintentionally lengthened, or goes in the wrong direction, or something
2) painting on such a small scale - it's quite difficult and laborious trying to paint small facial features so they look good
As someone with a broad background in fine art, and especially in painting, I have found the egg tempra medium to be really great to work in. The amount of detail, and subtle textures that one can acheive with it are really amazing. I can see why Andrew Wyeth uses that medium for his major works. I might try some other types of paintings in this medium at some point. One of the interesting things I have noticed in studying various types of icons is that the east and west had an almost identical artistic tradition up until the Italian Renaissance. The work of Duccio (proto-Renaissance Siennese painter), is very similar to that of his contemporary Byzantine/Greek counterparts.
Anyway, once I am done all of these (all the icons I've done so far are 9"x12") I will try some larger scale ones, and then maybe I will have a show of them sometime next year. In other artistic news, I recently sold my "Purgatory" painting, which I did while in seminary. It was part of a series I did on the "stages of death" - the others in the series being "Alienation", "Death", "Hell" (destroyed), "Purgatory" (sold), and "Salvation" (sold). NB: I just tried to make a link to it, but for some reason it's not working. I will try to get it up soon. Anyway, it was exciting to sell this piece, as I've come close to selling it a few times. It is an interesting painting and very near and dear to my heart. In some ways it foreshadows where I want to eventually go with my icon painting.
I will be having a show in Bel Air (Maryland) in August at the Liriodendron art gallery, which will consist of recent cityscapes. More information will be posted about it in the coming weeks. And the best news of all, my lovely wife is poised to have my updated art website up in a few more weeks, which, of course, I will link to from this blog.
