![]() So it’s a long drawn out process, it’s a slow process, it’s a meditative process. One of those drying periods is two months before I can apply any finish, any kind of varnish, to the icon. ![]() I’m not working on it for six months but it involves a number of drying periods. I enjoy doing it and right from making the board, from a wooden board to the finished icon, probably needs six months. Q: So how long does each icon take you to do?Ī: Well, it’s a very slow process. It’s quite an animated icon and I like it, so he will be getting that after this exhibition. My plumber said is there an icon for me, a saint for me? And I found Vincet Ferrer, this was research I had to do and on my stand in the cathedral now there is a painting of St Vincet Ferrer. ![]() For instance on the stand there’s one of St Vincet Ferrer, he’s the patron saint of plumbers. I select an icon that I like from the past and use that as my pattern, or people ask me to do a particular icon or sometimes they say, is there an icon of…. Q: What about the ideas for the icons…are they your own ideas or are they traditional?Ī: They are all traditional ideas. ![]() You then use gold leaf and gild the bole area around the image and then you paint the icon itself with egg tempora, which is all natural pigments and mixed with egg yolk. You then draw the image onto the board and you surround the image with bole, which is a red clay slip. You have to start from a wooden board, you make the board and you cover it with layers of gesso, which is a fine plaster. Q: Can you explain the actual process of making an icon?Ī: It’s a long and drawn out process, which I love, it’s very slow and it’s very suitable for my time of life and maturity. I have been on obviously, lots of classes about ordinary painting and I ended up painting icons enthusiastically. I was a book binder when I left school, so I was interested in art and I learned gilding there, so gilding icons now is something I love doing and something that was very natural for me to do. Q: Presumably you had a background in painting and art anyway?Ī: I’m not formally trained, I did design at the Nottingham Art College, when I was a youngster. I enjoyed it so much, I was about to retire and when I did retire I started painting in earnest and I paint practically every day now. I’d read the books but I needed the experience of hands on. In fact I found an iconographer in London and I went to paint with her for about seven or eight days to learn the basics. Then when I came to the time of retirement from St Edmundsbury in Ipswich Diocese, I asked if the Diocese would send me on an icon course. But perhaps age, perhaps maturity began to enable me to see icons and to begin to enjoy them as an artist. He was invited to St Edmundsbury Cathedral as Iconographer in Residence and Lynne Patrick went along to meet him.Ī: Well an iconographer is someone who paints icons, or 'writes' icons, is the correct terminology.Ī: Well, it’s something that developed very slowly in me, coming from an Anglican background, a Protestant background icons were something, for a long time I didn’t even look at. Priest-Iconographer The Reverend Derick Stevenson is a Diocesan Iconographer. ![]() This page has been archived and is no longer updated.įeatures You are in: Suffolk > Faith > Features > Priest-Iconographer ![]()
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