Creating my first icon on wood

I have been waiting for this moment but i wanted to be ready before the beginning. The icon painting is not subjected to contemporary ideas and is not just “art”. It is sacred art. It is not just an artistic expression but an expectation of salvation.

The following picture is the wooden board for my icon:

The wooden board needs a linen cloth fixed on top with pva glue. Then another special mixture has to be created and applied on top 5 times. You have to wait the mixture to dry and then apply a new layer. The following photos are taken for the second phase.

2W2

The weekly session was very important. Our instructor Jonathan  mentioned the Unit 2 specification. The unit will cover 30 weeks till Christmas.

The 3 core points for the new unit are:

1. Contextualisation
2. Research
3. Prototype

Concerning contextualisation Jonathan mentioned that it marks out a masters from an undergraduate degree.

Contextualisation is collecting the context for the research. The researcher has to read a lot, following connections trying to find where they lead. The research then is wide investigation parallely with practical work as well  in areas that the researcher must plan for the completion of the project.

Before completion, Prototype is a step that will mark the further progress of the project towards the end. A good word for prototype as Paul Thompson suggests is maquette – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maquette

When trying to create the prototype mistakes are acceptable. Time to adapt is given so further development will eventually come as Jonathan Kearny suggests.

Jonathan suggests also to document our mistakes too. I haven’t done this a lot but i will try to present my mistakes too so i can avoid in the future and i will learn by them.

Jonathan mentioned also the discussion paper that has to be completed at the end of this unit and also we discussed again about the PGPD essay that will be a complete academic research paper. The unit 2 essay will be  more discussion and open ended. 

2W1

The new term has begun and we had our first meeting with tutors and peers. The discussion our tutor Andy raised was about the Camberwell arts week that will be held in June and will take place in the virtual reality of Second Life. It will be a great opportunity to meet other students in this environment.

During our chat some of my peers wanted to visit my land and chapel in Second Life so i have invited them with a teleport in my land. It would be nice if my chapel could be finished in the interior so they could see some Icons on the templo – Iconostasi of the chapel. I am on the process of creating a first icon on wood that will texture the virtual iconostasi. I hope that till June i will be able to texture the iconostasi with my icons. I will be glad to invite also some other students that will be interested to visit my chapel. It will be a great opportunity to have a good first engangment of percipients. The best thing is that the percipients will be artists and the reflection i will get will be very important.

I was very happy to wellcome some of my peers at my land and chapel in the game. My tutor Andy visited the place and had a first 3d virtual contact inside the game. The contact of the chatroom had transformed in something else. The streaming text or video/voice conference we had tried has transformed in to something else with this contact. It was a digital virtual encounter. Below there are some of the snapshots of meeting tutor Andy and peers in my land.

 

Week 29-30-31

The off campus – vacation week was a period to relax and live the Orthodox Christian Week of passions and Ressurection – Anastasis of Jesus. During this period i have collected pigments and other tradinional materials for Icon painting with egg tempera. I will paint my first Icon on wood and i am waiting for my start. During a visit at MStavrovouni Monastery i had a chat with a monk there with a knowledge of fresco painting.  He advised me about the lime, sand and pigments used for Fresco Painting. The book of monk Kallinikos and the Art of Fresco Painting will assist in practising the best technique.  I have tried fresco painting at the Fine Art Academy of Hungary with the following results: 

 Leonidas Of Sparta on waves and Saint Paisios

 If you notice the above image you can notice a crack on the fresco in the middle of the warrior. It has happened because of a mistake on the mixture of the lime and the sand. The Art of Fresco painting needs a careful planning, patience and skills. Its a hard technique which i want to try along with Icon painting. As i mentioned before i want to make fresco painting for the chapel of Saint Raphael at Agii of Trimithia in Cyprus. At the Stavrovouni monastery i bought a book called Simio Mega – Sign Mega about the Saints Raphael, Nicolaos and Irini which the suffered turtures and death in the year 1463 by Turks in Lesvos. I am thinking to devote the chapels that i want to build – the virtual and real at these Saints. The image below is small painting with aquarelle which i made in April 2006 with the Saints.

I have collected the pigments for my first Icon painting made on wood. I will practice egg tempera on wood with materials shown below:

Some of the pigments are:

Cadmium yellow, Chromium oxide, titanium white, black raw and burnt sienna etc. I will mention the pigments used and the process for the icon painting. The icon painting needs to follow a special technique that is demanding but not like fresco where the technique needs to be mastered in order for a fresco to ‘live”.

At Stavrovouni monastery i took advice on Fresco Painting but also in Machairas Monastery i met monk Gabriel who told me to contact me soon about the lime i should use for the fresco.

On the road for Machairas i took some photos of a small proskinitari near a camp site.

Below there are two photos of Proskinitaria – of one company making sculptures pottery and other crafts.

Some people buy them for their houses. Usually inside there is one or two icons and an oil candle, shown below.

In a church there should be one oil candle for every Icon on the templo – Iconostasi.

The study of these craft model chapels will help me to build my own model in the neighbourhood park.