Saint Icon - Marianne Cope

So this has been in the pipes for a while though I'm not quite done with it. I figured I'd share it considering the importance of today.

Today on October 21, 2012 Marianne Cope was canonized a saint. She is the patron saint of lepers, outcasts, those with HIV/AIDS, and those in Hawaii.
For the drawing itself I used a few file pictures and merged them together. I wanted to make her older as almost all of the images I've seen of her use the younger images of her.

I am unsure what to do in the background. For the icon of Father Damien I did a very traditional niche background to mimic what you would see in a Catholic Church. I like how it came out, although I think I can do better. I am unsure at the moment if I want to add a background to this.

"One must always draw, draw with the eyes, 

when one cannot draw with a pencil." 

~Balthus