Before they were deities…

I am painting, painting, painting. I have finished four new icons since June 4th, and plan to finish another two by Monday, in time for our opening show the next day. And then I will be through with this project, and I can take a deep breath and look around a little bit.

It feels good to be finishing this series. A little bit scary. Where to now?

There have been some nice little photographic byproducts of this series– images that never made it to the final cut, but are gold nonetheless. Here are a few of those, alongside the finished icon from the same shoot.

Cliff:

There were so many goodies in here, it was impossible to choose just one. Basically, Cliff just yelled and ran at me with a machete for about an hour. It was fun.

I like this one because he kind of looks like a dinosaur.

…but I ultimately went with this one because of the perfect parallel folds in the fabric between his knees.

Misha:

This picture is one of my favorites since I’ve been doing these. There were a lot of beautiful shots in here because of the dramatic lighting (thanks Alice for holding the desk lamp.) Obviously, if it were chosen, the background would be gold-leafed out, but I really like how Manos’ torso is coming directly out of the tea bowl.

…but everyone who saw the two pictures agreed that while the former was great, it was more Jesus and less Misha then the latter. And besides, the first image did not really showcase the awesomeness of that dollar sign and diamond patterned hoodie, an item we chose to mirror the all-over design on the cloaks of many Russian Orthodox icons.

Zach:

This was one of the most fun shoots. I took over 30 pictures in a little more than three minutes. I said “go,” rapid fire, and everytime I did, Zach had to change his pose. This worked well for him. He was silly.

Hilar…

…but this one became the obvious choice– so angelic. I’ve seen icons where the Virgin Mary is doing something similar with her hands.

Robby:

I did not take these pictures. Ashley took them in Boston and sent them to me. This icon is a work in progress. I will most likely finish it tomorrow.

I had wanted to make Robby’s icon an icon of “Death.” Death was a character that appeared in two of Robby’s movies: the famed Eden and its sequel, From Haifa. Death was a brilliant narrative tool; he was the ominous precursor to the event of the same name. Invisible to the characters in the film, he basically just sat in the back of the shot with his mouth wide open and his head in a stocking looking hilarious. (For the folks at home, you should try putting your head in a stocking– it always looks great. It is a subject that Robby and his brothers have explored at length.)

…unfortunately, I wasn’t quite sure the stocking thing would transfer to such a small painting and, let’s face it, I’m running out of time here, so I went with a more conservative, but pretty classic Robby face.

Two more to go and then I am free.