So I like Old English font. Spikey but not stark. The antithesis of pithiness. Germanic. Modulated fullness. The kind of font you want to see carved into an inn sign.
Working with microsoft paint is hell. It is also fun.
Today I was working on my first icon under my mentor. There is likely one session left and then it will be finished, which is writing in the name of the saint. The saint: Thomas Aquinas.
It is tradition to make one's first icon either of St. Michael the Archangel or of Christ the Pantocrator. I think my mentor was excited about doing one of St. Thomas Aquinas when I mentioned I would like to do my first icon of the Doctor, since he had never done one of him before. And well, you don't see Byzantine icons of him, for obvious reasons. The whole tradition of Byzantine iconography, and all iconography I believe, is basing your work on the work previous - so we were going on very little with Aquinas.
My next icon will be of St. Michael.
The frustrations to be found in microsoft paint have nothing on the frustrations to be found in iconography. I'm not comparing the two, for that would be silly. I'm just saying...it is a good thing: in iconography it is as though the frustrations, so adamantine, are flush right against the miraculous resolutions. It is as though there is no gradation between the two. It is purification and prayer.
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