About creative process. A little Story of a Modern Icons and Easter. Part 1

So many times I have been wanting to pick up the stages of creating a painting. It is also a common advice, that a painter should show their followers/galleries/collectors, how their creative process is going. Finally I decided to make it true, trying to analyze a little bit, what I was doing, when and how. And keep some kind of diary of it, too.

About Don Diego and Easter

I have always loved Don Diego Velazquez´ painting "Christ Crusified", the head of it.

It is touching my soul deeply. On the other hand I once had a dream (before I had started to paint again), that I would check, what traditional icons painting would mean. But then I forgot it totally. Untill three years back I wanted to paint something in honour of Don Diego. And Easter was very close, too. So I painted "It is done". And during the next Easter I painted "Mother´s Sorrow". Both of them describe the suffering of Jesus.

Don Diego´s Christ Crucified

It is done. Angel helping Christ from the cross

Mother´s Sorrow

And when another Easter came by, in last April, I wanted to paint something related to the issue, but maybe place it after suffering.

Coeur des Coeurs among other things

Thus I painted "Coeur des Coeurs". He has his eyes open, mouth only a little bit smiling, but smiling anyway. He has risen his left hand a bit, and one can see his wound. One can also see his Heart on his chest. He has a big golden aura behind his head. Passion flowers go round the aura, and a white pigeon is flying very close. Stars all over.

I understood, that once again I had loaded the canvas with the symbols I love the most!

They all mean the greatest for me: suffering belongs to our human life, but so do hope, love, beauty and forgiveness. It felf so good to notice this, as I had been working almost unconsciously, just like floating in a flow or in a dream.

A new thing was, that I made frames on the edges of the painting. I used gypsum and stencils, acrylic paints, mica pigments and finally resin to cover the frame. That way it became quite beautiful, golden and shining element. It was nice to be able to take advantage of this technique here also, after discovering it last summer and having trained it for a year by now. I had painted the base of the piece with strong beautiful red with acryls. Christ I painted with my faves, oils.

"Coeur des Coeurs", Modern Icons collection Easter 2025. Red.

I had planned to paint the next piece in this series in Easter, 2026.

Modern Icons

But the theme started to haunt me. I noticed I had learned a brand new process and consept to paint. So I started to paint more using this knowledge. At the moment I have black, white and lilac ones in addition to the original red. And a yellow one I have started.

All of their sizes are (90 x 90 x 4) cm. All also include a tiny spice of Byzantine.

"Coeur de Courage". Modern Icons Collection 2025. Black.

`"Mattitja" (meaning "Gift of God"). Modern Icons Collection 2025. White.

"Ani Hu" (meaning "I am"). Modern Icons Collection 2025. Lilac.

I got the idea to call this series my "Modern Icons" collection. I dream to craft them in all colours! If I had time, I would only paint and paint them all the time. Let´s see, what comes out of this!

Coming back to the very beginning: I have added the paintings´pics mentioned in this blog. And will write a separate one (Part 2) of the creative process, to keep these two "sections" maybe a bit easier to follow.

But yes, Dear, thank you for reading, again!

I wish you enjoy the pictures - let´s come back soon!

Yours in art,

Liisa