How are the icons made?

In our workshop, the icons are made according to a unique author's technology by transferring the image onto a gesso icon board. After processing and drying, the wooden icon board is pasted over with a substrate (lining), on which gesso is applied in layers.

What is Levkas? Levkas is an icon-painting primer made according to ancient recipes from natural ingredients, such as chalk, bone and skin glues, various vegetable oils, honey, etc. The composition can be found on the Internet, but every master keeps the proportions a secret.

Why not simply prime the icon board, as artists do when they paint on canvas? It's about the tree. Wood is a living material, it changes, a wooden icon can bend. Thanks to this unique composition, gesso, the icon retains its plasticity. And there is also the luminosity and volume of the image. Many layers of chalk composition reflect light well.

Each layer of gesso is aged, processed by hand until a mirror surface is achieved. The image is then applied to this surface.


Levkas has the property of transmitting light through itself. The light reflected from the surface of the layers creates an optical effect of luminosity and three-dimensionality of the image, which brings the icon as close as possible to the original.

Ours masters for the first time managed to achieve this effect by printing.

The mineral paints used have a high lightfastness. That is, the icon can be placed under the sun's rays and it will remain just as bright.
Why not paper or canvas?

Paper and canvas are short-lived, tend to deform and tear. It is impossible to display the layering and brightness of colors on paper and canvas. According to the law of optics, the light goes out in the uneven texture of the canvas.

  • All icons are consecrated on the relics of St. Theophan the Recluse
  • The icon was made according to the iconographic canons - on a real wooden board (pine 2 cm thick)
  • Printing in prepared and hand-sanded gesso is applied with mineral (natural) paints
  • The icons are waxed by hand to protect them from moisture.
  • Our workshop Icon has been operating since 1997
  • Our masters are members of the Union of Artists 

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