Praying with a Brush

Praying With a Brush is a one-day workshop for iconographers interested in learning the basic brush skills necessary to paint an icon. We start with a repertoire of basic calligraphic brush strokes and practice exercises using only ink and a brush. Using traditional, art historical Orthodox icons as models, students will be taught to make their own drawings. After an acetate transparency is placed over the model, we re-discover line by line, the icon’s inner geometry, balance, order and structure.

Students will continue onto the more painterly process of modelling soft passages of tone, using a dry brush technique. Using the instructor’s prepared models and exercises, students will practice creating the icon’s characteristic inner glow, building a ramp from dark to light with many transparent layers, finally reaching a bright opacity.

As we work, we pray in a familiar way to the holy person represented in the icon. With each brush stroke, we repeat the prayer “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” Based on the prayer of the repentant publican in Luke 18:9, this practice is a cornerstone of Eastern Orthodox piety. While writing an icon, it quiets our mind and focuses our hand, and can be used as a way to pray without ceasing outside of icon painting.

This workshop can be taken on its own, or as preparation for the Essentials of Iconography workshop. It is applicable to all schools of icon painting, in all mediums.

You are welcome to start your day with Mass at 9 AM. Check in and coffee with be at 10 AM in the Sacred Art Studio.

Lunch served in the dining of the Enders House, an early 20th century arts and crafts style mansion and the oldest structure on the island.

The day will conclude at approximately 6 PM.