Newsletter March 2024

Newsletter March 2024:
CHANGE OF PLAN.

This Newsletter has 4 main topics:
1. Conference
2. Study Group
3. Change of Plan
4. Crucifixion

CONFERENCE

Dear Friends,
I try to refrain from spamming as much as I can, but there are several things I would love to share with you and I could not resist.

First and foremost, - I was invited to participate in a seminar at Andrey Rublev Museum in Moscow and I think this event is among the most significant ones at the moment. For me it demonstrated the origins of a gap between people, who feel better copying works of our predecessors and those who take old models for inspiration and perform their research. I published a little overview at Orthodox Arts Journal, please, - have a look if you are interested: https://orthodoxartsjournal.org/questions-for-iconographers/ and don't miss the Comments section, as the discussion continues there :)

STUDY GROUP

The second bit of information is about our special long program which is about to restart in October. If you like to work and study from home, we invite you to our Study Group, made to support iconographers who want to study during the year. For the first time we launched it last November, and as now it is coming to an end, we see how really great it is and wanted to share some thoughts.

The goal of this program is to paint an icon of Christ. The idea is to bring together all the knowledge that our students have so far and to teach some more essential new skills. The photograph on the right presents two unfinished icons, one on gessoed board and one on paper. They both need several more touches which will be covered in the next assignments, however, I decided to share them here to illustrate this program. Every month we suggest from 2 to 4 short and bearable assignments, covering topics like Sketches, Hair, Beards and Color. We made both PDFs with instructions and video tutorials as extensive as possible, yet compressed them as much as we could because we know that our students have a very limited amount of time. We did not know it would be so good, but here is a short response we've got recently from one of the students, we think it gives a good idea of what to expect:

Dear Philip and Olga,
I am very happy that the study group exists and that I can learn so much from you for a very good price. I can see all the work behind it, the videos and also the very well thought out concept of the whole course. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge so generously. It is a great enrichment for me to learn from you. My own icons have changed and I am designing them myself, which is a completely new step and leads me more to my own icons - I hope so.
I very much hope that all participants stick with it.

The next Study Group will start on October 17 and it is only available to those who took our “Drawing Frontal Faces“ and “ Egg Tempera. Faces“. The payments for Study Group are calculated based on the number of tasks per month. We both strongly recommend this program, because although being slow, it thoughtfully teaches a lot of essential iconography aspects. Please, have a look at the plan of assignments and ask questions if you are interested. There is no hurry to register, but if you do, we will do our best to remind you about the program and invite you to the classroom on Sunday (October 13, 2024).

CHANGE OF PLAN

One more piece of news about the courses, - it’s about our next iconography course in New Jersey, starting on May 06: We Will Work on Boards and paint an icon of Theotokos!

Our original plan was to only work on paper as it's the best option for learning maximum. Although we successfully used this approach in Australia and Italy for several years, it does not work so well in the US, so we changed our plan. We plan to perform an extended number of exercises on several icons of Theotokos (the Mother of God), teaching how to draw and paint icons on your own when you return home after the workshop. The exercises will include different types of activities, such as work planning, drawing, work with color, work evaluation (and lectures). In the last two days the students will be drawing/writing/painting an icon of Theotokos (the Mother of God) on gessoed boards (provided) while Olga and I will do our best to assist and help them. We hope that every student will have an opportunity to either finish or almost finish his/her own icon, painted with egg tempera on an individually created drawing.

CRUCIFIXION

And the last thing, - an icon of Crucifixion by Philip. It is only 14 inches tall, - commissioned for a little home chapel it is planned to accompany an existing icon of the Mother of God of the Sign. We were also asked to add a little container with a relic of the Holy Cross on it, so, in the nearest days I will create a special area for it and ship it to the client. It's interesting to see how every Crucifix comes out differently. So far I have painted about 10 of them, mostly for churches, and I am always excited to see how they work in the space - even in the smallest room. Because so much depends on the size! - A small one will always be more inviting to a personal prayer and interaction, while a large size needs to be different, -it becomes part of the architecture.

We hope not to bother you any more in the near future.

Please, stay safe and thank you very much for your prayers!

With warmest greetings,
Philip & Olga

Earlier Newsletters: