Byzantine Iconography Painting Series 1: Painting Basics (1)
What you'll learn
- Materials and Workspace for painting icons
- Preparation of the egg emulsion.
- Mixing paints
- Basic painting techniques
- Theory of Colour and Light in Byzantine Iconography
- The process of painting garments
- Painting a variety of folds and garments
- Painting various colours with a limited tetrachrome palette.
Requirements
- Byzantine Iconography Series 1: Drawing the Face
- Byzantine Iconography Series 2: Drawing the Half Figure
- Byzantine Iconography Series 3: Garment Basics
- Byzantine Iconography Series 4: Drawing the Full Figure (Part 1)
Description
In Part 1 of Series 1 Painting Basics where going to start our journey of learning to paint icons. In Section 1 you will learn about the workspace and materials needed to paint with egg tempera. Then you will learn how to prepare the egg emulsion and the painting surface and how to mix the colours. This is followed by several exercises for learning brush techniques needed to paint icons.
In Section 2 we will go into the theory of Byzantine iconography and how colour and light function in the icon as well as the question of colour symbolism in icons.
In Section 3 we will start with a basic garment exercise to understand how the photismata are build up rhythmically by first building up the forms from light to dark.
In Section 4 will start discovering the magic of painting with a limited tetrachrome palette, by painting a mauve sleeve, this time working from dark to light.
In Section 5 and 6 you will discover one of the trickiest colours to paint in tetrachrome: Green. You will learn to paint it using two different techniques.
The basic material you will need for these tutorials are:
Pigments
Yellow Ochre (or Iron Oxide Yellow)
Iron Oxide Black
Light Mars Red (or Red Ochre)
Medium Mars Red
Titanium White
Egg Emulsion
Egg
White wine
Lavender or Basil essential oil
2 Plastic dropper bottles for egg emulsion and water
Paint brushes (rounds with a good tip, flats and riggers)
Palette for mixing paint (a sheet of glass or plexiglass is optional)
Container of water for cleaning brushes.
Paper towel
Hot press watercolour paper for painting exercises.
Who this course is for:
- Beginners in Byzantine Iconography
Instructor
Hello, I'm Julia. I'm a South African born byzantine iconographer with 16 years experience. I live and studied iconography in Greece with teachers including master iconographer George Kordis. I have also studied Theology and done post-graduate studies in Liturgics at the University of Athens.
So what are these iconography tutorials about? This is not a standard weekend iconography workshop where you simply learn to trace an icon and "paint-by-numbers". It was never the tradition of the Church to make "photocopies" of old icons, but sadly this modern "tradition" is destroying the creative tradition of the Church. Every period of iconography from the Comnene to the Paleologian periods to the Cretan School has it's own style within the Byzantine system of painting and the iconographic tradition of the Church. In these tutorials you will be introduced to the Byzantine system of painting and given tools that will allow you create within the tradition of the Church.
It cannot be emphasized enough how important it is for iconographers to learn to draw before starting to paint. That is why with these tutorials we will start by building the foundation by learning how to draw before we progress to painting icons.
The tutorials have subtitles for the deaf.