St.Clement, Post 10: The initial sketch

"...Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations..." - Jeremiah 1:5 (New American Standard Bible)

Work on the Icon entered a new phase today.

I completed the 10th layer of gesso yesterday, and sanded down the board with several different grade sandpapers. And starting at about 10:30 this morning, I began the process of actually putting to paper the design elements I had rattling around in my brain.

About seven posts or so back, I mentioned many of the 'ideas' I had for the icon: beard length, anchors, roman mosaics, scrolls, water springing from a quarry, anchors, pallium, bishops crozier, etc. During the process of preparing the board, these elements were constantly on my mind. But today, the time came to incorporate those elements into an actual sketch. Eight hours later, I have something I am almost happy with.

I drew together elements from a number of different icons to create the sketch. In spite of using three different existing icons of St. Clement to create his head, I found myself still making my own alterations to his eyes and mouth to create what I feel is a 'kinder, gentler' Clement than I have seen in many icons. I drew from a well-known icon of the Baptism of Christ as a prototype for the stones and water in the quarry...and was inspired, sort of spur-of-the-moment, to divide the background to make it appear as if Clement was rising out of the ocean. All in all, I found myself with at least six separate drawings (each of different elements), with which I then played cut-and-tape to assemble a composite picture. I taped a piece of tracing paper over the composite, and using a pencil, traced it all into a single sketch on the tracing paper. That product is pictured above...and, subject to whim and inspiration, that will be the image I transfer onto the gesso-covered board.

The scroll is blank...because I still haven't settled on the precise quote to use. And I'm not sure if I like the business of the quarry in the background as a contrast against the relative simplicity of the figure of Clement himself.

But then again, once I begin to paint, perhaps things will develop differently.

I've thought about this icon so much...and prayed daily...and now I need to sit back and look at this sketch for a few days. It doesn't seem to me as if "I" drew it...it incorporates the elements I wanted, in a design arrangement that was uniquely mine...but somehow it still doesn't strike me as "my" drawing, from "my" hand.

And perhaps that's precisely as it ought to be...