Painting icons, to me personally, brings peace to my soul. I paint icons in traditional way, egg tempera on wood. Preparing wood is also done in the old traditional way. This means that after cotton is glued onto the surface of the wood, a special mixture has to be applied. The same procedure is repeated 5-7 times. Each application is thoroughly dried before the next one is applied. Finally, the surface is sanded and paining may begin.
To make an icon, iconographers use a lot of very fine brushes with only a couple of hairs, and for that reason they call themselves icon writers.