One of the big changes painters taught in the western tradition have to make is not looking at icons as a progression from light to dark, or top to bottom. I don't adhere strictly to the idea that we must begin with the darkest layer or proplasmos (which too often becomes a thick and impenetrable blanket of pigment) but I have learned to look past the highlights. It's tricky because our eyes are drawn to the light, the sparkles, the glitter, in all parts of our life. As an iconographer, we have to gaze past that and find the foundations, the simpler, solid tones our forms are built on. … [Read more...]