How to Make Orthodox Icons

Orthodox icons are religious images fashioned in the time-honored Eastern European tradition so often seen in Greek, Bulgarian, and also Russian cathedrals and countryside churches. If you are ready to learn how to make orthodox icons, you are going to find that this practice is extremely easy to master even for the beginner. In part this is due to the fact that the traditional icon is a flat image and that conventional iconography relies heavily on stylized depictions as opposed to real life portrayal of individuals. Follow these straight forward steps and begin making orthodox icons as a very rewarding hobby for both the novice and the advanced enthusiast.

Things You'll Need

• Icon Boards
• Tracing Paper or pre-traced image (for beginners)
• Soft pencil (for beginners)
• Red pigment dust pencil
• One book of 25 gold leaves
• Gilding paste
• Exacta knife
• Paints
• Paintbrushes (#0, 3, and #5)
• Varnish

Instructions

Sketching and Gilding

1. Purchase the icon boards which are your canvas. Although it is possible to make them yourself, buying ones that are already cut and prepared takes hours off the experience and especially for the newcomer to the craft this is a highly recommended step. Usually these boards are made from poplar or linden wood although birch is also used.

2. Sketch the images your icons will represent with a soft pencil on tracing paper. Since the depictions are heavily stylized, it is imperative to make the pencil strokes you do use count! Beginners may also use pre-traced images. Pros usually skip this step.

3. Turn over the final sketches and use the red pigment dust pencil to trace the back of the papers, following the pencil outline on the front.

4. Place the sketches with the side outlined in red down onto the prepared icon boards and once again pick up your pencil. Trace all the lines and permit the pressure you put on the pencil to deposit the red powder onto the boards. If necessary, retrace the red outlines on the boards with a red pencil to make sure you capture all the angles. Artists well versed in freehand drawing will skip directly to this step and use the red pencil to outline the images onto the boards.

5. Gild the nimbus areas of the icon figures. This is a multistep process and requires some time! Begin by preparing the boards with water based gilding paste and then apply gold leaves to the outlined area one at a time. Be careful not to waste any of the gold leaves by carefully etching out each bit you do not need with an Exacta knife.

6. Let the gilded icons dry and remove any excess gold leaf.

Painting and Varnishing

1. Mix your paints according to the manufacturer’s recommendations. Unless you are a purist, you most likely will have purchased water based, already mixed colors. Keep in mind that usually there are only three to five colors used in an icon: cadmium red, ultramarine and cobalt blue, gold and burnt sienna, lamp black, and Veronese green. White is used for mixing and to prepare areas of special shine.

2. Use the paintbrushes and first color the lines that make the image on your icon boards. This is done with the darkest paints. Let the icon boards dry after you complete this step.

3. Choose the paints to color in the images you have outlined earlier and do so with the paintbrush appropriate to the size of the image. You are now using paints which are slightly lighter than in the last step. Once again, let your icons dry completely.

4. Color the faces with lighter colors still. After this step is completed, apply white highlights to the areas which are to be lighted. Once the images have dried, you may need to repeat this step, depending how much of the pigment was absorbed by the underlying coats of darker paint.

5. Paint the outside and the backs of the icons with lamp black or cadmium red.

6. Follow the paint manufacturer’s instructions with respect to the time needed for letting the paints set completely. Depending on the kinds of colors you have chosen for your orthodox icons, this may take anywhere from three days to three months.

7. Varnish the faces of the icons with a satin sheen to shield the colors from fading and from humidity. Once the varnish has dried, you may display your finished orthodox icons by either hanging them on a wall or by placing them on shelves.

Tips & Warnings

• Advanced artists skip the tracing paper step and directly use red pencil to draw their images onto the prepared icon boards. If you are a good artist, go ahead and do likewise.

• Making an orthodox icon is like a paint study that traverses from darkest colors to lightest colors with each subsequent application of paint. It is important that you follow this progression to lend vibrancy to your finished icon.

• Do not use modern colors like canary yellow, orange, pink or brown for your icons. They clash with the medium and will not make for an authentic looking orthodox icon.