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Description
Theotokos of Vladimir
© Cecilia Lawrence
February 25th 2015
Acrylic on Wood
12 x 16 inches

It is truly meet to bless you, O Theotokos,
ever-blessed and most pure, and the Mother of our God.
More honorable than the Cherubim,
and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim,
without defilement you gave birth to God the Word.
True Theotokos we magnify you!
~ Axion Estin

Well, I finally got around to finishing this one. It's been in the works since before Christmas of last year and I only just got around to finishing it. I had stopped working on it for a while because I was so disgusted by how bad it was turning out. It was supposed to be a 2014 Christmas gift for the mother of a friend. Instead, I decided to try and finish it for her birthday this year (a week late, but hey). So I spent the last couple of weeks working on trying to finish it, and voila, it is finished.

RANT: Untold hours of agony and pain went into this. There were many times when all I wanted to do was throw my brushes across the room and flip some tables and give up on being an artist altogether. Life lesson learned: I am a dreadful acrylic painter and I have a love-hate (mostly hate) relationship with acrylics (maybe oils too, I don't know). I just don't have the patience for painting. I want to get it all done in one or two sittings at most and that just doesn't/can't happen. Also, when there is a significant lack of noticeable progress, I get very discouraged and frustrated. I only got excited about this picture at the very end once I started doing the gold leaf (first time ever using gold leaf on a piece, hurrah!). I'm still not 100% happy with it, but I'm done, and that's really all I ever wanted to be with this piece. And there went my Spring Break. So, as horrendous and frustrating as it was to work on this, I did learn a lot about myself as an artist and about how I work. And I guess that's always a good thing.

The Theotokos of Vladimir is one of my favorite icons of my Mary so I'll probably end up doing yet another rendition of this in my (preferred) medium: ink and watercolor. Time to get back to working with art materials that make sense.

Description
Theotokos of Vladimir
© Cecilia Lawrence
February 25th 2015
Acrylic on Wood
12 x 16 inches

It is truly meet to bless you, O Theotokos,
ever-blessed and most pure, and the Mother of our God.
More honorable than the Cherubim,
and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim,
without defilement you gave birth to God the Word.
True Theotokos we magnify you!
~ Axion Estin

Well, I finally got around to finishing this one. It's been in the works since before Christmas of last year and I only just got around to finishing it. I had stopped working on it for a while because I was so disgusted by how bad it was turning out. It was supposed to be a 2014 Christmas gift for the mother of a friend. Instead, I decided to try and finish it for her birthday this year (a week late, but hey). So I spent the last couple of weeks working on trying to finish it, and voila, it is finished.

RANT: Untold hours of agony and pain went into this. There were many times when all I wanted to do was throw my brushes across the room and flip some tables and give up on being an artist altogether. Life lesson learned: I am a dreadful acrylic painter and I have a love-hate (mostly hate) relationship with acrylics (maybe oils too, I don't know). I just don't have the patience for painting. I want to get it all done in one or two sittings at most and that just doesn't/can't happen. Also, when there is a significant lack of noticeable progress, I get very discouraged and frustrated. I only got excited about this picture at the very end once I started doing the gold leaf (first time ever using gold leaf on a piece, hurrah!). I'm still not 100% happy with it, but I'm done, and that's really all I ever wanted to be with this piece. And there went my Spring Break. So, as horrendous and frustrating as it was to work on this, I did learn a lot about myself as an artist and about how I work. And I guess that's always a good thing.

The Theotokos of Vladimir is one of my favorite icons of my Mary so I'll probably end up doing yet another rendition of this in my (preferred) medium: ink and watercolor. Time to get back to working with art materials that make sense.