St. Andrew

The 2nd and last day of the egg tempera painting workshop. Our assignment was to paint an icon of St. Andrew. The instructor, Sean Cain, had an outline for us to copy on our clayboards, and then we could paint as we wished, following the basic guidelines of 1) painting dark to light, 2) feathering transitions areas in the skin tones. And also following the traditional color choices for skin and hair.

So this was my finished icon. I decided to play around with the background area, since I had all that unused space. The texture was created by wiping (with some oomph) with a paper towel while the top layer of paint was still damp. I also wiped into the painted icon around the edges so that it looked more integrated. The clayboard that Sean had specified for the class was 7"x9", but I already had this board that was slightly larger at 9"x12". And it was just a little to big for the composition, so I created the border, originally thinking I would do a decorated border, but there was no time.

Now I'm thinking that I'd try to use it as a cover board for the Byzantine bookbinding class that I'm taking in 3 weeks.