The White Angel of Serbia: Day 4

Today we laid in the face, hands and check out those great shoes!

Sankir, First Flesh

Second Flesh, the first highlight

Third Flesh, draws the light closer to the eyes and center of the face

Fourth Flesh adds more light and begins to highlight the wisdom mark, or third eye

Fifth Flesh adds more light still...

The Enliveners brighten the eyes and other light-catching parts of the face, and the eyebrows, and other eye details bring the face to life...

And below are more pictures of  St. Mary's iconographers, working hard and well...

The White Angel of Serbia: Day 3

Today Gabriel got fabulous hair, fancy wings, and a cozy robe...and empty shroud... tomorrow, face, hands and fantastic sandals...

Our iconograhers, hard at work...

Below, the hair is revealed with four increasingly bright highlights...

The White Angel of Serbia: Day 2

Thank you to St. Mary's iconographers for another great day. Today we began adding light to our icons, starting with the "stone" upon which Gabriel is sitting, then moving on to the tomb, the ground, and finally the roof and second-wings. Tomorrow we'll highlight Gabriel's first set of wings, then move on to giving him (?) some great garb, and highlighting the shroud as well...

The White Angel of Serbia: Day 1

Today the Iconographers of St. Mary's Bonita Springs, FL traced the pattern of the icon onto their gessoed boards, and began to lay in the darkest, shadow colors of the icon...

 Iconographers, ready to begin a great week!
My thanks to this wonderful community for a wonderful first day...

The pattern is traced, and then we begin our move from darkness into light...

The darkest dark of the tomb is laid in first in black.

Then Gabriel's hair and first set of wings...

The second set of wings (for traveling between God's realm and ours...) and the roof and border...

The shroud and Gabriel's clothing are next... and the ribbon in his hair...

The first flesh, shadow tone, is this olive green called Sankir.

And the stones, ground, dirt are a darker, shadow version of another flesh tone (Second Flesh...) ... recalling that we fleshy folk are ourselves made of clay and dust, yes? along with a good dose of Spirit...

Tomorrow we begin adding light...

The White Angel of Serbia

Iconographers from St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Bonita Springs, FL will write this icon of "The White Angel of Serbia" during a week-long Lenten retreat, March 24-28.

The White Angel of Serbia is one of the best-known icons of the Archangel Gabriel, and is based on this 13th century fresco from the Mileševa monastery in Serbia.

The Angel indicates the tomb, empty but for Jesus' left-behind shroud, and addresses the women who have come to care for Jesus' body, saying, "You seek Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said." (Matthew 28:5-6)

This icon has a fascinating 20th century history, being the image in the first satellite broadcast sent from America to Western Europe after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and was sent into outer space as part of a message to extraterrestrials. Seriously.

Icons of angels include abundant symbolism unique to their place in Creation. They appear rather androgynous, with great hair but no beards.  They have two sets of wings: one to transport them in God's realm, the other to transport them between God's realm and ours. And they are constantly in motion, indicated by the ribbons in their hair, flowing behind them as if being blown about in the angel's wake.

Stay tuned as we write this icon.  I'll aim for posting pictures daily, to show how it unfolds, moving from darkness into light, death into life, anticipating resurrection...

Forward Day By Day

Exciting news! Four of my icons will be the 2014 cover art for Forward Day By Day, a daily devotional published quarterly by Forward Movement, a ministry of The Episcopal Church.

If you came here today because you saw this blog address inside the cover of your new Forward Day By Day, welcome! This blog is a collection of photos of icons I've written and workshops I've led in Maine, Florida and California. Click around and you will get a sense of how icons are written, as well as the theology and spirituality represented by these holy images.  Because my "day job" as a parish priest keeps me rather busy, I am not able to update this blog with anything like regularity. Please don't hesitate, however, to be in touch (pblair(at)stpetersdelmar(dot)net)  if you have any questions about what you see here, the icons themselves, or the process by which they are written.

Peace and Joy!
Paige+

Photos from our Korsun Workshop

Our workshop in August was a delight. These photos unfold the process of writing this icon over the course of 5 days.