Some of my own icons

      Here are some of my own icons, about 10% of my output in the last 8 years or so.  One of them is the first icon I ever did, as well as the second, so if you can figure out which they are, I'll have to dream up a prize.
      Mostly I use prepared panels from Innerglow which are made of 3 layers of Douglas fir.  I have also used birch boards from Home Depot cut into appropriate lengths, and lots of gesso, lots of sandpaper, and lots and lots of elbow grease.  Not worth all the effort.
      In the last year I have been using weathered lumber (slab wood) and some Florida cypress, unseasoned, to use only with my Christ of Sinai icons.  (Until I figure out how to put a label under each icon, you'll identify this icon because it is narrower than the others and the appearance is more modern by comparison.)
     I was taught using Jo Sanya acrylic paints rather than egg tempera and I make no apologies.  I know there are people who consider the former to be inferior, but I don't subscribe to that theory.
     Whatever the method or materials, the experience of creating an icon is, for me, difficult to describe.  I simply feel that God truly guides me in this work. 
     When I have attended a class and we view the finished icons, we always remark that they are all beautiful.  But the true beauty of an icon is in its eventual use as a "window into Heaven" for those who believe.