icon- The Virgin of the Sign

This is a documentation of the process we went through in Lowell last week on th contemplative journey of 'writing' an icon of the Virgin of the Sign. It was a wonderful week of contemplation, learning, fun, and prayer. Not a creative process but a contemplative one.

You can scroll through this like a flip book and watch it develop! It took us five days and layers and layers of paint. We began the process with prayer and meditation. The teacher had line drawings of the image. We traced these onto tracing paper and then centered that on top of a graphite sheet on the board and traced it again. We painted the lines with a dark color. Then we put layers of yellow paint over it and proceeded through the process over five days with the teacher demonstrating each step and telling us what color to use and returning to our seats and following the direction. We listened to chant and sacred music as we worked and prayed into our brushstrokes. The paint was thinnned to the consistency of hal and half creamer and the layers built up.