St Paul is Finished and Sophia is Begun

The colors are not quite as bright in this picture as they are in the real icon, but that's the way it is with photos on the web. This Paul is a copy of of famous icon by Andrei Rublev, one of the greatest of all iconographers. This copy was finished last week and was varnished ...the icon is still not as dry as I'd like, but another week or so of drying will solve that. Normally it takes me about six months to do an icon, but this one just took three - not sure why, but I'm glad.

I am now working on a Sophia - the Wisdom of God. I tranferred the image onto the board last week, and gilded the halo today (a nerve-wracking process with no margin for error). I've begun to paint the black lines that are the skeleton of the picture. I may get that completed before next week's class, so I can start adding color. Here's what Sophia looks like at this stage. Again, not the greatest photo, but it gives you an idea of where I start from.