To get started in ikon painting you will need a board to paint on, gesso with glue, pigments, eggs, gilding materials (when you are ready to gild) and varnish. Finding supplies for ikon painting has been difficult until recently. Artists, particularly in small towns, found it hard to locate supplies locally. An even bigger problem was getting books which explained the technique; there was little in print anywhere on egg tempera painting.

I used to order most of my pigments from England, which was difficult and costly. Now, with the advent of the Internet it is incredibly easy to find supplies. All of these materials are now available from Sinopia, a store in San Francisco which has a site for ordering on the web. Materials - especially pigments - can be expensive. For a while I bought my pigments from another store in San Francisco, until a clerk told me about Sinopia, which is at least 50% less expensive than any source I have yet found. For the rest of the section of the website on the craft of ikonography I will make the assumption that you will be getting your supplies from them and will describe specific colors and products they carry.

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Next chapter: The Board