St. Alexander the Solider of Egypt, painted in 2017. One of the boys in our parish is named for this saint but the family never managed to find an icon of him. I did research, read as many versions of his life as I could find, and consulted my iconography teacher about how to go about painting an icon with no prototype to follow. With much prayer and trepidation I sketched an image of the saint and painted this icon of him.
I’m happy with the way he turned out. However, I think the proportions are slightly off. I hope the saint doesn’t mind too much I may have made his torso a little too long and his hands a little too small. Then again, who knows, maybe he had small hands and a long torso.
Saint Alexander suffered with the hosiomartyrs Patermuthius and Copres, during the reign of the emperor Julian the Apostate (361-363). He was a soldier who witnessed the torture of Saint Copres, and believed in Christ. He was burned alive. St. Alexander’s feast day is July 9.
matushka constantina
lessons from a monastery 
Matushka —
We have to paint icons with no satisfactory prototype often. The only other thing my teacher (Fr. Patrick Doolan) would add is to find an icon of a similar saint and use that as a model — perhaps you were doing that, too.
As to the proportions, mostly he is short (61/2 heads tall), and, yes, the torso takes up a lot of his height. But that is consonant with the “Eastern” (Syrian, Coptic, Ethiopian) iconographic tradition. For an Egyptian saint, it’s quite appropriate, and, to my eye, rather endearing.
Also, it’s quite common for iconographers to shorten (or even omit) the segment from the waist to the hips. I guess one can think of spiritual reasons for this. I have medical training, but I try not to get all wound up when the anatomy doesn’t quite add up.
Darya Carney Lake Odessa, MI