Anyone wanting to learn Byzantine Iconography needs to lay the right foundation. Simply tracing old icons or jumping straight into painting (“by numbers”) only builds a house of cards that will collapse. The foundation for being able to paint icons is learning to draw according to the Byzantine system. Once the foundation is laid (and practiced continually) it allows us to create within the iconographic tradition of the Orthodox Church and not simply “photocopy” old icons ( a practice that appeared in the 20th century and was never part of the tradition of the Church). In this first course on drawing icons we will start by learning the importance of line and how line is used to create the rhythm that brings icons to life. From there we will progress to drawing the face in several poses:
•The frontal pose ( and we will see why it is not used in Byzantine iconography)•The dynamic frontal pose•The dynamic frontal pose on curved axes•Ascetic Faces and beards•The reverential 3/4 pose•The upward facing 3/4 pose•and the face of the Infant ChristWe will study different types of faces in each pose (young face, woman’s face, ascetic or elderly face) so we can see how each type of face is drawn in each pose.
A Streamlined Approach To Drawing Faces
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