Icon painting and my obsession with gesso

What is this obsession with soaking glue crystals overnight, adding water, heating in a double boiler slowly, sifting in whiting bit by bit and finally painting it onto sized wood and waiting for it to dry before each of the 8 layers are built up? Of course that's the easy bit over. Then there is the sanding smooth and overcoming the fear of starting a painting. Why, oh why do I love this process? It's a right bloomin faf.

It started back at Uni when a tutor gave us one of the few practical sessions on sealing and preparing gesso primer for wood. What a surface, smooth hard white, you can scratch into it, sand it away, build it up and the resistance is brilliant! Canvas just annoyed me after that. Bounce, bounce, boing, rip.

This obsession has led me to traditional painting methods. Gesso has been around a long, long time. The Egyptians used it and of course it's most commonly used as a ground in religious Icon painting which goes back a long way. Mostly today it is used to build up a surface which will then be gilded as with picture frames.

 

ummy with an inserted panel portrait of a youth, ca. A.D. 80–100
Encaustic on limewood; Mummy: 169 x 45 cm (57 1/8 x 17 3/4 in.); Portrat as exposed: 38.1 x 18 cm (15 x 7 1/8 in.)Account and the British School of Archaeology, 1912 (11.139
There are examples of Fayum portraits from this era at the British Museum. They were encaustic painted onto gesso on wood. I must pay them a visit!

My interest in Iconography came from a trip to St Agnes of Bohemia convent in Prague. I was just blown away by the medieval icons there. Some with secret images on the backs, gashes with blood pouring out. Stunning stuff, I was mesmerized. Some nice images of the convent which is part of the National Gallery can be found here. So after visiting the National Gallery in London show recently Devotion by Design: Italian Altarpieces before 1500, I promised myslef I'd track down a icon painting course.

Process and rituals in painting
So my obsession with process and rituals in painting  and creativity led me to do a course in Icon painting at the Princes School of Traditional Art in London this summer. A week of pure obsessive painting, just up my alley. The tutor Irina Bradley is a Russian  Orthodox Iconographer working in the Byzantine style and PHD student of the school. I was particularly interested as she is researching traditional recipes for gesso as well as other things. This was an amazing experience for me. A real retreat too, if you can retreat into the heart of London. I'm not a city girl but it does give you a certain anonymity which I liked.

I started toying with the idea of painting icons in my last set of paintings. I suppose they were spiritual for me rather than religious. Which would probably make Iconographers wince. They linked the idea of medieval icons with doors, Egyptian,Buddhist motifs and symbols hand gestures and my own life/spiritual symbols all enveloping my ritualistic process painting folded inside. Gosh my grammar will make people cringe too. Just read it back Apologies! Only a starting point really and make me cringe a bit now, but part of the journey all the same. They were very meaningful at the time so that's what counts I suppose. Painted on wood from my grandma's mahogany table. I loved my gran and miss her alot. Many a fond time spent eating and playing cards on this wood. I imagine it having a memory. All the icons have doors that close and are meant to be portable and for personal use, maybe to help meditative focus.

Next blog I promise myself I'll sort the Icon course photo's what a journey that was. In technique, knowledge and spirituality. Loved it and what better way to torture myself than think about MA's and Post Grads I havn't the time or money to do........one day.