Byzantine Iconography Painting Series 2: Hair and Beards 1

Welcome Painting Series 2 in which we will continue our journey into Byzantine Iconography by learning to paint hair and beards. If you are a beginner, I recommend that before starting this series you complete at least Series 1 on Drawing Faces and Painting Series Part 1: Painting Basics so that you have the right foundation to start this series. It will be divided into 3 parts to make is more accessible. In this first part we will be painting simple short hair , like that of St Dimitrios and a short beard, like that of Christ. In Part 2 we will be doing long hair and long beards, and in Part 3 curly hair and grey hair and beards. I hope you enjoy the tutorials.

The basic material you will need for these tutorials are:

1. Pigments

   • Yellow Ochre (or Iron Oxide Yellow)

   • Iron Oxide Black

   • Light Mars Red (or Red Ochre)

   • Medium Mars Red

   • Titanium White

2. Egg Emulsion

   • Egg

   • White wine

   • Lavender or Basil essential oil

3. 2 Plastic dropper bottles for egg emulsion and water

4. Paint brushes (rounds with a good tip, flats and riggers)

5. Palette for mixing paint (a sheet of glass or plexiglass is optional)

6. Container of water for cleaning brushes.

7. Paper towel

8. Hot press watercolour paper for painting exercises.

Resource PDFs with photographs of each stage of the painting process as well as related icons are included for each lesson.