Icons Ascending

Some time back I created a one-off, diptych abstract which I called 'Faded Icons'. It had been first inspired by a trip I'd made to the St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art in Glasgow (a wonderful place, which I hope to visit again soon). I became interested in the painting of religious icons, the colours, use of gold leaf and then the idea of creating something which references these things, evoked a sense of 'spirit', but without the use of figurative forms. I was also interested in the idea of aging, decay, crumbling plaster and fading paint.

'Faded Icons' (diptych)
Two 8 x 10" canvases
Acrylic on canvas

Following the sale of this piece, I was delighted to be contacted about a commission for three more similar panels. I'd always intended Faded Icons to be the start of a series, but I'd got distracted away to other projects.

The new canvases were to hang one above the other on a staircase, and had some very specific dimensions - three panels of 10 x 14" inches, narrow canvases so as to not protrude too far into peoples way, hanging two inches apart.

After chatting with my client, experimenting a little and making up some swatches, we agreed there should be a flow of marks 'ascending' through the three canvases, and this caused my first quandary - how to paint the canvases in sequence so that, when hung, they would give a seamless appearance. My husband came to my rescue, whisked away the panels and returned with them attached to a pole, which was then clamped to my heaviest easel for support. This set up was surprisingly sturdy!


The next stage was to give each panel a coating of a grainy, rough medium, which along with impasto layers of paint would give the piece it's texture. These were applied in sweeps and lines, with fingers, down the length of the three canvases. The idea was for the top-most panel to have the least texture and the bottom the heaviest, to give an idea of 'weight' at the bottom and 'lightness' at the top.

After giving the medium some time to set hard - shorter than I had expected due to some very warm weather making the studio rather hot - I coated all three canvases in specially mixed paint colours, varying from more an orange colour at the top, down to a rich, darkened cadmium red at the bottom. This was perhaps the most alarming stage of the painting - the canvases really were very vivid and distracting. It was hard to focus on anything else in the room, so I was glad to move on to the next part...

As I applied the next layers of paint I followed a similar colour scheme to the original Faded Icons painting. That green of oxidised copper and turquoise and deeper blues. Again the idea was for the lighter colours to just slightly dominate towards the top canvas, and the deeper hues to be dominant towards the bottom canvas, adding more weight.

The final stage involved adding very selective sweeps of copper and gold metallic paint. I used my fingers for this process, and worked slowly, standing back or leaving the room often so as to keep fresh eyes. I t would have been very easy to over-do these colours and 'kill off' the subtle textures and colours I'd laid down before. At a point I knew it was done and to stop, an instinctive thing.



The finished panels - the top canvas...


The middle canvas....



The bottom canvas...


As they now hang...

'Icons Ascending'

I was quite pleased with some of the complex textures I managed to create, and managed to get some nice photos in good outdoor light before boxing the painting up to be sent to my client.

I must say, the whole commission - whilst giving that little edgy feeling of challenging myself - was a delight to work on! My clients were lovely, very clear about what they wanted but also very open to ideas and suggestions and happy to let me take the piece off to new places, and have given me some wonderful feedback...

Stunning, wonderful, brilliant, striking, and uplifting - and everything that we could have hoped for. You have hit it right on the nail.

Some of the nicest words you could hope to be emailed when working on a project for someone, I was over the moon!

May I say how much we have enjoyed commissioning this triptych? It has been exciting to work through the ideas with you, and seeing your preparatory swatches helped to refine our idea of what we were looking for. It is, of course, a rather nerve-wracking process (for artist and client), waiting to see whether the finished artwork lives up to the ideas that prompted the commission. My wife joins me in saying that you have responded magnificently to the challenge and we look forward to hanging them, and enjoying them for many years to come. That you enjoyed the process of creation, and that your fee is so reasonable adds further pleasure! Many thanks for everything.

On that happy note, I'd just like to say I do hope to work on some similar projects as other work allows, I hope to do some more paintings in this series, and would be overjoyed to be asked to do similar commissions. Thanks once again to my delightful clients for trusting me to take their ideas into paint!