Dear Friend,
First of all, – THANK YOU for your interest to our work and for your time. We love our work and we are grateful for your support! These two months were full of good things and we are glad we can share them with you.
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We have recently had three workshops. Two Advanced ones in Saint Mary’s University (Calgary, Canada), and Gage Academy of Arts (Seattle WA). where we painted icon of Saint John the Baptist and a Drawing one, where we draw 3.5 days with pencils and brushes. (See the photos: http://sacredmurals.com/…icon_painting_courses_usa_canada_2017 )
It was a great time, – lots of challenges and, hope, even more discoveries. From the other hand, even though it seems to us, that all the three workshops went well, I feel that when next time we happen to teach one in the Holy Cross Monastery, we should better connect our workshop with worship. And it is not only about adjusting our time to the schedule of services, it’s much wider – about icons “working” in liturgical space, – both theory and practice.
We have already started thinking about the next year workshop in Holy Cross, but I think we will only be able to launch it in October. -
It’s only July, but both our January Icon Drawing Workshops in Melbourne are filled up or almost filled up. We talked to the ACU and decided to launch one more, this time more universal, – like we did in the past. We called it “General Icon Painting Workshop” intending to say it’s about painting an icon from scratch to the end, going through all sorts of activities we used go to in our daily work. Planning it we mostly thought of potential students, who’d never attended our workshops before, so they could catch up and grab their piece of experience.
And – an important notice, – if you have already signed up for any of previously announced workshops and want to switch to a new one, please, let us know in the nearest time, before it is filled up.
- At our latest workshops I was asked many times about our Sources of Pigments, so instead of spelling the links I have promised to list of our suppliers and our favourite colors in current Newsletter. Each of them has some wonderful colors, so the order is just alphabetical and I hope we may continue investigations and share some more in the future.I. Agulis, – armenian colors, sparsely sold in Saint Petersburg. We ordered some their pigments last year, – you can read about our experience in our latest Christmas Newsletter. Our favourite color in their palette is:Violet Light (here is example of this color, used for background: ..annunciation.html)II. Poggi – an italian company with 2 stores in Rome and as we talked to them some years ago, they said they could ship internationally. The prices are also given in euros per kilo, so, it might have a sense to order a package to share, since pigments are nice and finely grinded.Our favourite ones by now are:
Terra Verde Antica (which now I don’t see at their website)
Rosso Pozzuoli
Rosso Veneto
Giallo MargheritaIII. Kremer we buy in Saint Petersburg, also in kilos and the favourites are:
Green UmberII. Zecchi is also sold in Saint Petersburg, we have many things, but really use few:
Coral Powder (see background as an example: (crucifix_2013.html )
Verdaccio Chiaro
Verdaccio Scuro
Herculanum red
Green Umber
Raw UmberPigments with different or unidentifiable sources :
1. Titanium White
2. Shunghite
3. Ocra Roma (Light Yellow Ochre)
4. Golden OchreAnd hopefully there are more to come… - Eight of our latest icons:
- Working with New Media, – our Youtube channel is slowly growing… Here is the latest addition – a better version of Video, dedicated to varnishing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vcucGcwaoA. Please, leave your comments, – it’s a beginner’s experiment, any constructive critique is appreciated. Within a couple of months from now we think of making some more of this kind, and we will take into account every consideration.Another video to share, – our Australian friend Sister of Mercy Margaret Broadbent was interviewed almost two months ago: https://vimeo.com/218884778.
And third one is an audio interview with a gentlema, producing pigments: http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/conversations/conversations-david-coles/8595382
- At our latest workshops I spoke about variety of ways reality can be rendered to become natural part of an image. Here is a good example of how one can study the garments : https://www.flickr.com/…
- And last but not least, – Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg has recently published their collection of icons in hight resolution, – enjoy! http://rusmuseumvrm.ru/collections/iconography/index.php?lang=en***
With warmest regard,
Philip (and Olga)