Byzantine Iconography Painting Series 1: Painting Basics (3)

Welcome to Part 2 of the Painting Basics Series of Byzantine Iconography Tutorials. In these tutorials, we will continue the journey of discovering the magic of the limited tetrachrome palette while also learning to paint several types of garments that we will typically paint in icons. It is very important for beginners to practice painting different types of garments before jumping in to paint a complete icon. Often beginners place so much emphasis on the face thinking that if the face looks good, no one will notice that the garments don’t. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that… as I myself learned the hard way!

Yellow garments can be difficult to paint as it’s easy for them to look lifeless and flat. In Lesson 10 you will learn the secret for painting vibrant yellow garments while we learn to paint some typical lower garments that are found in full-figure icons of Christ, the Apostles as well as women saints.

While strictly speaking there are no “black” garments in Byzantine iconography, there is now an expectation that contemporary monastic saints will be depicted wearing black. These black garments often end up looking lifeless, but in Lesson 11 I will be teaching you how to paint black garments that actually look radiant.

Finally in the lesson 12, the last lesson in this series, we will be painting gold garments and objects.

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

   • Gold Ochre(optional)

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.

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