St. Elizabeth Icon Studio

St. Francis of Assisi — Series starts February 2024

Wed, 07 Feb 2024 13:19:55 GMT

St. Francis of Assisi — Series starts February 2024

A standing figure of St. Francis of Assisi, with the walls and buildings of Assisi in the background, will be our 12-Week Intermediate Class Project beginning in February 2024. This class will focus on the development of the standing figure, including the techniques of painting a smaller, more graphic face. We will also study the principles of painting medieval architecture and other incidental elements, such as vegetation and inanimate objects.

In developing the drawing for our icon of St. Francis, we will turn to some of the oldest images and traditions about the saint. Francis was born in 1182 and died in 1226. He was canonized in 1228, less than 2 years after his death. That same year the Franciscan Thomas of Celano wrote, by order of the Pope, a biography of Francis, the Vita prima. Construction also began on a monumental new church in his honor, the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. In 1230, Francis’ body was transferred to the new basilica. In 1246 Tommaso compiled a Vita segunda, based on information gathered from the saint’s first companions. In 1260 St. Bonaventura wrote a new biography, the Legenda major, which became the Franciscan Order’s official biography of St. Francis.

During those first decades following his death, Francis’ life was recorded not only in written biographies but also in paintings. Between 1235 and 1255, a number of panel icons of the standing figure of the saint were painted. Some of these images included various scenes from his life. One of these, titled St. Francis and Four of His Miracles, is pictured below. It was painted by an artist known simply as the “Master of the Treasury” shortly after the consecration of the basilica in 1253. The buildings in this ancient icon provide colorful models for the buildings of Assisi in our icon.

Italia, Umbria, Perugia, Assisi, Basilica di San Francesco in Assisi, Museo del Tesoro

The earliest frescos in the basilica were painted before 1263 by another anonymous artist, probably a Franciscan friar, known only as the “St. Francis Master.” He also painted the panel icon pictured below, St. Francis between Two Angels, circa 1260, which hangs today in the Museum of the Portiuncula. The wood panel on which this image is painted was the bottom of the mortuary casket that safeguarded Francis’s body in its temporary burial place before his remains were moved to the basilica.

St. Francis between Two Angels, the Museum of the Portiuncula

In 1280, Pope Nicholas III commissioned the Florentine painter Cimabue to undertake extensive painting in the basilica. Cimabue’s frescos in the basilica are said by some to be his greatest work. One of the most beautiful of these paintings is the Madonna with the Divine Child pictured below. The Virgin and Child are seated on a throne and are surrounded by angels, with Francis standing on the side. Critics say that this portrait of Francis is more faithful than any other to the physical description of Francis made by his first biographer, Thomas of Celano. This will be one of our primary models for the figure of the saint himself.

Madonna with the Divine Child

Not only will we draw from the ancient paintings in developing our icon, but we will also draw from some of the oldest of the Franciscan traditions. All Franciscans throughout the world celebrate August 2 as the Feast of Our Lady of the Angels of the Portiuncula. When Francis had his mystical vision in 1205 and heard the call of Christ to “repair my house, which is falling into ruins,” Francis set about restoring several ruined chapels in Umbria. The third chapel he repaired was the Portiuncula or the “Little Portion,” dedicated to St. Mary of the Angels. The abandoned chapel and the surrounding land was owned at the time by the Benedictines of Mount Subasio. They agreed to give the chapel and the land to Francis and his followers for their use, but because of Francis’ vow of poverty, he was hesitant to own any property. Instead, an agreement was reached whereby the Franciscans would “rent” the land and chapel from the Benedictines for an annual fee of a basket of fish from the nearby Tescio river.

The Portiuncula became the home base of the Franciscan order. It was here that Francis received Clare into the Order on Palm Sunday evening in 1212, before Clare and her companions moved to San Damiano to establish a separate monastery for women. Francis traveled extensively doing missionary work during his lifetime, but it was to the Portiuncula that he returned to die in 1226. To this very day, Franciscans throughout the world consider the Portiuncula their home, and every year on August 2 in Assisi the Franciscans send the Benedictines a basket of fish for their “rent payment” for their “little portion of land”!

You will notice a basket of fish in our icon. Now you know why!

Drawing of St. Francis for the St. Elizabeth Icon Studio

Recommended Reading: If you plan to paint an icon of St. Francis, I strongly encourage you to learn as much as you can about the saint before you begin your work. You can do this through reading and prayer. Many books are available about his life and teachings. Among my favorites are Francis and Jesus by Murray Bodo and Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi by Richard Rohr. Both authors are Franciscan priests.

Paint mixing and beginning series 2024

Wed, 08 Nov 2023 12:45:59 GMT

Paint mixing and beginning series 2024

The teaching program for beginners at St. Elizabeth Icon Studio consists of an Introduction to Paint Mixing and Pigments Class (3 consecutive days) followed by a Beginning Project Class (weekly on Saturdays for 10 weeks). All classes are taught live on Zoom and are recorded, and students have access to the recordings for at least 3 months after the last class ends. Some students take the classes live and use the recordings for reinforcement of for making up classes that they miss. Other students cannot attend the live classes because of scheduling conflicts, so they work completely from the recordings. Both approaches seem to work.

Our beginning series of classes always starts with the 3-day Introduction to Paint Mixing & Pigments Class for those students who do not know how to mix their own egg tempera paint. This class covers the techniques of mixing paint for the three main applications used in the process: roskrish, highlights and floats. Students will complete a series of painting exercises for each of the applications. There are also two sessions of Pigment Study covering the names and characteristics of the major pigments used in our school of icon painting. This class provides the fundamental knowledge that students need before they can successfully undertake the study of icon painting online. Unlike live classes where the student can depend on the teacher to mix the paint for the class, in online classes even our beginners must be able to mix their own paint. Some might say this is both a blessing and a curse! It requires that students develop the ability to make their own paint at the beginning of their study, which eventually leads to a greater independence on the part of the students to pursue later painting.

Before the Paint Mixing class begins, all students receive a package of instructional materials and supplies which are included in the cost of the class.

Winter/spring Series

The first Introduction to Paint Mixing & Pigments Class in 2024 will be held on January 25-27: Thursday – Saturday, 10am-noon & 1pm-3pm Central Time.

Following the Paint Mixing Class, we offer a 10-week Beginning Project Class that starts on February 17: Saturdays, 10am-noon & 1pm-3pm Central Time. In the project classes, the student paints a small icon with the teacher, step by step. These classes focus on developing the fundamental skills of the applications of the various steps of the process, and at the end of the class, the student has a completed icon. The day before each class, the students receive an email containing written instructions and step photographs for the work that will be undertaken the next day. During each live Zoom class, the teacher guides the students in mixing their paints and in applying the paint to the board. Some students choose to paint along with the teacher, and others prefer to watch the demonstrations and then complete the work later from the recorded videos. The evening of the class, or the next morning, students receive another email that contains a link to the Zoom recording. Again, they will have access to these recordings for three months after the last class.

The Beginning Project Class for the Winter/Spring session (February 17 – April 27) will be the Archangel Gabriel. Gabriel is one of the seven great Archangels who serve as intermediaries between God and humankind. Gabriel’s particular missions in Scripture and Tradition were those of a messenger angel. In scripture it was Gabriel who appeared to the Virgin at the Annunciation to tell her of the impending birth of Christ. Tradition holds that it was Gabriel who brought the joyful news to the shepherds in the fields on the night of the Nativity. Tradition also places Gabriel as the messenger angel who appeared to both St. Anne and St. Joachim to announce the birth of the Virgin herself, and Gabriel was the messenger who appeared to the priest Zacariah to tell him that his wife Elizabeth would bear a son to be named John (the Baptist).

Summer/fall Series

Our second Introduction to Paint Mixing & Pigments Class in 2024 is scheduled for June 27-29. The Beginning Project Class for the Summer/Fall session will begin on July 20 and end on September 28. The project will be the Mother of God (The Theotokos). For those students who choose to paint both beginning project classes in 2024, the two icons of Gabriel and Our Lady can be hinged together to form a diptych of the Annunciation.

FOR REGISTRATION INFORMATION ON ALL OF THESE CLASSES, PLEASE GO TO THE “CLASSES” PAGE OF THIS WEBSITE AND CLICK ON THE INDICATED LINKS.

St. Mary Magdalene, Apostle to the Apostles icon – Series starts July 2023 - St. Elizabeth Icon Studio

Tue, 06 Jun 2023 13:29:10 GMT

St. Mary Magdalene, Apostle to the Apostles icon – Series starts July 2023

Christian iconography is essentially the faithful transmission of the truths of the faith. The canons of the eastern Church tell us that new icons should be based on older icons when possible. In developing an icon of a saint, we first study existing iconography. Contemporary Byzantine icons should always be informed by the images of past years, as well as historical information and traditions associated with the saint. In other words, iconography is not an exercise in artistic creativity.

In studying the historic icons of Mary Magdalene, we see that the traditional colors of her garments vary. In the “Noli Me Tangere” icons, when she is pictured with Christ in the garden after the resurrection, she is usually shown in a red robe, but when pictured at the crucifixion, she is often shown in a green robe, or sometimes a red or brown robe. Likewise, her hair style varies in the old icons. In some images her hair is covered with a snood, as is typical of icons of female saints. In other images, however, her hair is long and loose, not at all common for most icons of women.

After looking at many icons, I decided to follow the written guidelines for her garments set forth in An Icon Painter’s Notebook: The Bolshakov Edition, an anthology of ancient Russian source materials from the 16th -17th centuries and earlier. It says, “The holy myrrh-bearer and equal to the apostles, Mary Magdalene has a green cloak, an ochre tunic, she holds a white container in her hand and a cross in the left.” In our icon, the green of her robe will slant toward a blue-green, and her inner ochre robe will slant toward a reddish ochre. (The class starts in July; see the Classes page for details or the registration form here.)

The Bolshakov manuel gave no indication about her hair, but its companion volume An Iconographer’s Patternbook: the Stroganov Tradition contained a drawing of Mary Magdalen with her hair loose and flowing. In Byzantine iconography a woman’s hair is usually covered with a snood as a sign of respect; it is considered disrespectful to show her hair. However, a few female saints are occasionally portrayed with various hair styles. In some historical icons Mary’s hair was covered; in others, it was not — especially in images of her at the crucifixion and in the garden after the resurrection of Christ. Why? Was this long flowing hair a sign of disrespect, or was there some deeper meaning associated with it?

Details of Mary Magdalene’s life and the exact nature of her relationship to Jesus have been lost in history. Many legends have risen about her, and most of these have no factual evidence to support them. One legend that has risen at various times in history is that Mary Magdalene and Jesus married and had children who became the forerunners of some of the European royal houses. This legend has been totally debunked — there is no foundation for it at all. But even in modern times this myth has served as the basis of such fictional works as The DaVinci Code.

Another false belief, more widely accepted in the Roman Catholic Church even today, is that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. Its origin has been traced back to the 6th-century Roman pontiff Pope Gregory the Great’s sermon in 594. It was not until 1969 that the Catholic church retracted this teaching. Therefore, we see many images of Mary Magdalene dressed in red, weeping profusely as a penitent sinful lustful woman, in the western artwork of the Middle Ages. However, this false myth was never embraced by the eastern Christian churches, which always held Mary Magdalene in high respect and referred to her as equal to the apostles. Her iconography in the eastern churches is not that of a prostitute, and there is no evidence that her revealed hair was any indication of disrespect.

So why is Mary Magdalene sometimes portrayed with long, uncovered hair? The answer to this question may be revealed in an incident from Scripture that occurred at Bethany shortly before Jesus’ death, an incident that many Scripture scholars ascribe to Mary Magdalene. All four Gospels (Matt 26:6-13, Mark 14:3-9, Luke 7:36-50, John 12:1-8) tell us that Jesus was at supper with friends, and a woman anointed his feet and/or head with expensive oil — bathing his feet with her tears, anointing them with costly oil, and drying them with her hair. When the apostles criticized the extravagance of this action, Jesus reprimanded them, telling them that this anointing was in preparation for his death and that what she had done should be told in remembrance of her. Perhaps the long flowing hair of Mary Magdalene is silent witness to these actions, the hair that dried the feet of the Lord testifying to the great love she had for him and prefiguring his approaching death. In our icon, Mary will have long flowing hair.

There is a custom in Byzantine iconography that all martyrs are shown holding a cross. The Bolshakov manual tells us that Mary Magdalene should be painted holding a cross, but to the best of our knowledge, she was not a martyr. Why then a cross for her? Again, we are informed by Scripture. The Gospels specifically name Mary Magdalene being present at the crucifixion. She stood with a group of women near (or at a distance from) the cross throughout Jesus’ agony and his death. As the old hymn says, she was there when they crucified the Lord. For this reason, the ancient iconographic guidelines indicate that Mary Magdalene holds a cross—not because she was a martyr, but because she was at the cross when Jesus died. She lived the reality of the crucifixion, and the cross she holds in her images testifies to this.

The Gospels also tell us that she and other women went to the tomb early in the morning after the Sabbath to anoint the body of Jesus with spices—the myrrh-bearing women. There they discovered the empty tomb. This is reflected in most Byzantine images of Mary Magdalene by her being shown holding some sort of container with spices in it for the anointing of the dead.

Finally, all four Gospels identify her by name as the first witness to the resurrection. It was she who first saw the risen Lord. Most of the gospels add that after the resurrection she is specifically told by Jesus to go and tell the other apostles that He is risen—hence her title, Apostle to the Apostles. Our icon will carry this title along with her name. It is an ancient title for her, recognized by all the Christian churches in both the east and the west.

St. Mary Magdalene, Apostle to the Apostles, pray for us who paint this image in remembrance of you!

The Archangel Michael, Warrior icon – Series starts July 2023

Tue, 06 Jun 2023 04:04:47 GMT

The Archangel Michael, Warrior icon – Series starts July 2023

The Christian tradition teaches that angels are bodiless spiritual beings created by God who often serve as messengers between God and humankind. As such, they are portrayed in Byzantine iconography in the robes of the Byzantine court. When St. Michael is painted in company with the other archangels or saints, he is depicted in this manner.

However, there is another tradition associated with the Archangel Michael — that of the leader of God’s heavenly host of angels, engaged in battle against the forces of evil. As a warrior, St. Michael is painted in the garb of the Roman soldier, usually in armor of metal and leather, with a red cloak.

St. Michael the Archangel

The prayer of the Church reflects the warrior role of this great Archangel: “Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle; be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world, seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.”

On a technical note, the Archangel Michael, Warrior icon is the beginning project that most focuses on graphics—the linework and stroke work that can make or break an icon. Of all the painting skills utilized in the development of the icon, the final line work is considered by many to be the most important. Good graphics can compensate for a myriad of other small mistakes as a student strives to develop technical skills. Our special focus in this class will be to build improved dexterity in handling our brushes as we perform the tasks of lines and strokes that will build this image into the great warrior of God.

Note: For more details about teaching beginning painters online, please read our previous post

Teaching Beginners to Paint Online . To register for the St. Michael icon class, use this form. For more information, go to the Classes page .

The search For The Perfect Brush

Sat, 07 Jan 2023 04:12:09 GMT

The search for the perfect icon paintbrush

The most important tools in an iconographer’s supply box are our brushes. Many of us have spent years on a quest for “the magic brush,” hoping that once it was found all our brush strokes will be perfect and our brush control will be sublime.

That one perfect brush became our Holy Grail, and the search never ended. We watched hopefully for whatever brush our teachers held in their hands at that year’s workshop, and if possible, we bought one, thinking that that one held the key to our success. Over the years, if we persevered in our efforts, we learned that practice and diligence were the keys to mastering the art of brush control. But at the same time, we also learned that icon painting requires specialty brushes, and that some brushes work better than others

When I first began studying with Vladislav Andreyev in 1996, our brushes were all the Lowe-Cornell Mixtique line of brushes, composed of a blend of natural and synthetic hair. They were good all-purpose round brushes that we used for everything. Unfortunately, after about 10 years or so, Lowe-Cornell discontinued those brushes. (I still have a few of those old Mixtique brushes stashed away in my treasury of old brushes.) Today the Lowe-Cornell company itself is no more. A sad loss to the art form!

After the Mixtique brushes disappeared from the market, we icon painters spent several years trying various round brushes and liners: synthetics, natural hairs of various sorts, combinations of the two. None were perfect. My favorites at that time were the Raphael 8404 and 8408 kolinsky sable brushes. Unfortunately, they were far too expensive to give to students at workshops, so the students often got somewhat inferior, less expensive brushes that were not always easy to work with.

Then the Russian brushes came on the scene, especially the Roubloff line of kolinsky sable brushes. At first we could only get these brushes when some of the Prosopon teachers brought them back from Russia, but gradually we established contacts with Russia and were able to order them for ourselves. The Roubloff kolinsky sable brushes were much less expensive than other kolinsky sable brushes, and they were perfect for our work! As we used them, I realized that they wore out rather quickly, but they were inexpensive enough that it was easy to replace them.

I could end the story here and say that we all lived happily ever after, but then the war between Russia and the Ukraine broke out, and the US put an embargo on all imports from Russia. As soon as the embargo was in place, I realized that when my current supply of Roubloff brushes ran out, I was going to have a problem: Those were the brushes I counted on for all my students’ fine detail work. I needed to find a replacement quickly. So last year, in 2022, the quest for the perfect brush was once again on!

I had used Dick Blick Master Sable brushes in past years, and they were good, reasonably priced sable brushes, so I was hoping that they would be our replacement brush. Unfortunately, when I ordered a few trial sizes, they did not work at all the way the Russian brushes did. The cut of the hairs was different, and that affected their performance for our purposes. This forced me to really analyze the Roubloff brushes with a magnifying glass to understand exactly what it was that I was looking for in a replacement brush.

Being a modern (if somewhat ancient) woman of the 2020s, I turned to the internet and googled “best round watercolor brush.” As google searches always go, this took me down several different rabbit holes and left me with a list of possibilities — which I diligently explored by ordering numerous brands and lines and sizes of brushes to try. This search ended up being pretty pricey, and I now have a lot of brushes that don’t work, but I had to paint with each brush myself to determine whether it would serve us well. 2022 was The Year of the Brush!

The good news is that I finally found a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: a brush that I love, love, love — the Davinci Maestro 37 line! DaVinci is a well-known German brush company, and their brushes are comparable to the French Raphael brushes or the British Winsor Newton brushes. The DaVinci Maestro 37 is a tapered, pointed, round kolinsky sable brush that is perfect for our work.

DaVinci brushes used for icon painting

Unfortunately, these brushes are more expensive that the Russian brushes, but I think they are also more substantially made and will last a longer time. In practical terms, it will be a difference of about $10 per brush. Our brushes are so important that I think this expense is justified for such a fine quality instrument. These are the brushes that I am using now and will provide to my students in 2023. They are available through our website, and I am keeping the cost down for our students as much as I possibly can.

For all of you accustomed to working with the Roubloff brushes, be aware that the numbering system of the DaVinci brushes is different. Below are the comparable sizes in both lines:

DaVinci #000 = Roubloff #0

DaVinci #00 = Roubloff #1

DaVinci #0 = Roubloff #1.5

DaVinci #1. = Roubloff #2

At the time of this writing, I still have the Roubloff #0 and the Roubloff #2 available in open stock. The Roubloff #1 is available in a set of three brushes, along with the #0 and the #2. The Roubloff #1.5 is completely sold out. Please see our order form for a listing of all brushes that are currently available.

St. John the Baptist icon – Series starts February 2023

Sun, 11 Dec 2022 04:24:46 GMT

St. John the Baptist icon – Series starts February 2023

St. John the Baptist — also known as St. John the Forerunner — is one of my favorite saints to paint! I love his wild hair, his long straggly beard, and his green camel’s hair garment that looks like water. When I was first learning to paint icons in egg tempera with Vladislav in the 1990s, this was the third icon that Vladislav allowed us to paint. First, we painted the Archangel Michael, then we painted Gabriel as a mirror image of Michael, and then we painted John the Baptist. John is an excellent icon for beginning-level students to transition into intermediate-level painting.

Our icon of John is based on an ancient medieval woodcut, reworked into Byzantine line. Unique to this image is John’s hair, blown back from his face by the wind of Spirit, who inspires him to proclaim the coming of the Messiah. John holds in his hand the staff of the messenger, symbolizing his role as a messenger from God. Scripture does not tell us anything about John’s early life, but one strand of ancient tradition tells us that John’s father Zachariah was killed in the temple by Roman soldiers during the Slaughter of the Innocents after the birth of Jesus. John’s mother Elizabeth fled with her baby to the dessert, where she found refuge with the Essenes. John grew up in the wilderness and lived an ascetic life (eating “locusts and wild honey”), often indicated in the icons by his thin arms and legs.

The story and description of John the Baptist, the last and greatest of all the prophets, can be found at the beginning of the Gospel of Mark, which opens with the ancient prophecy of Isaiah, realized in the person of John:

See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way;

the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

As we prepare to paint the icon of John in 2023, let us ask ourselves, “What in our own lives do we need to change? How does John’s voice call to each of us to prepare the way of the Lord, to prepare to welcome Christ into our own lives? How will John speak to each of us this year as we paint his face, writing the Gospel in line and color with our brushes and our pigments?”

This class begins with an introductory session on Friday, January 27, followed by two weeks of preparatory time for gilding and line work. Painting classes begin on Friday, February 10, and continue weekly thereafter until the end of April (with a break for Easter and another break). For additional information, and to register for this class, please go to our CLASSES page and follow the registration link for John the Baptist.

Teaching beginners to paint icons online – New classes start in February 2023

Sat, 10 Dec 2022 04:50:05 GMT

Teaching beginners to paint icons online – New classes start in February 2023

How do you teach someone with little or no painting experience how to paint an icon in an online class?

That was a question I faced almost three years ago when COVID-19 closed the country, and Vladislav Andreyev asked me to teach a beginning-level online class for the Prosopon School.

Online teaching requires a different approach from live teaching. Unlike classes with students physically present in my studio, in online classes I cannot mix the initial paint for the beginners, nor can I correct their mistakes or physically show them what they might be doing incorrectly.

The first step in online teaching of beginners is to teach them how to mix their own paint — to instruct them about the nature of painting in egg tempera with dry pigments, the relationship between pigment and egg and water, and the various methods of applying the paint. This is the material that we cover in our 3-day PAINT MIXING CLASS (Feb. 2-4, 2023), which is a prerequisite for all the other classes that I teach.

Students receive all art materials necessary to complete the work, because it is essential that we all work with the same brushes and tools. Students also receive detailed written instructions and reference materials prior to the class. Classes are conducted live on Zoom and they are recorded. Students have access to the recordings for at least 3 months after the final date of the class, and they can watch the videos as many times as they wish.

During the class, I walk them through every step of the process, and we do the work together, aided by close-up views of my work via a web camera, as well as screen-share photos and one recorded video demonstration of making the egg mixture. There are ample opportunities to ask questions.

The Paint Mixing Class consists of six 2-hour sessions (2 each day, with a 1-hour lunch break): an introductory session, three painting sessions, and two pigment-study sessions. These sessions give students a foundational understanding of Prosopon-style egg tempera painting that prepares them for successful work in all the other online classes.

Christ the Bridegroom

Most students follow up the Paint Mixing Class with a nine-week BEGINNING SERIES project class that starts two weeks later. (These classes are two 2-hour sessions each Saturday for nine Saturdays.) Over the course, we paint a small icon of the head and shoulders of either Christ, Our Lady, Archangel Michael, or Archangel Gabriel. (The projects rotate over two years’ time.) We work through each step of the process, learning the skills necessary to complete each step successfully.

Our icons are small (6’x8”) and the images are simple, and we take plenty of time to focus on the fundamentals of the work and how to handle the brush and the paints. Students get to observe me doing every step of the work via the web camera, and we do much of the painting together in class, with the students completing any unfinished work during the week. Many students paint more than one icon of the class project as they develop their skills.

St. Michael the Archangel

For individual assistance with their work, my students in project classes are all enrolled automatically in my Tuesday Zoom critique sessions. They email me a photograph of their work, and on Tuesdays at 3 pm and again at 7 pm Central Time, I open each email and critique each photo. We celebrate the things they have done well, and I give them my suggestions about how to improve areas that need work or correction. Some students do not send photos but rather critique their own work considering my comments about the photos of other students. Everyone enjoys these constructive critique sessions, and we cover a variety of topics about icon painting.

This February our beginning project class will be an image of THE BRIDEGROOM — Christ at his Passion, with a crown of thorns. We will focus on the fine points of painting the face of Our Lord, which is a little different from other faces. This is a perfect image for our prayers as we move through Lent and Holy Week this spring. Classes begin Feb. 18, 2023, and end in April, with a few breaks included in the series. All classes are recorded in case students miss a particular class; they make up the work from the recording.

Beginning after the 4th of July this year, a second series of beginning classes will be taught with the subject of the project class being the Archangel Michael, Warrior. Please see our CLASSES page for more information about all our classes and the registration process. If you feel called to begin painting icons, come and join us. We’d love to have you!

New Packet: Icon of St. Thomas Aquinas

Wed, 03 Aug 2022 04:54:52 GMT

New Packet: Icon of St. Thomas Aquinas

Not long before we closed our local icon studio in Lafayette because of the start of the covid pandemic, one of our students requested that we paint an icon of St. Thomas Aquinas. Her son was getting his masters’ degree in history and philosophy, and he had a particular love for the writings of St. Thomas, the 13 th century Dominican friar and priest who is recognized as one of the most influential theologians of the Roman Catholic Church and the greatest thinker of the medieval period. Given the title of Doctor of the Church, he is often referred to as the Doctor Angelicus, the one who spoke with the tongue of the angels.

In designing our icon of St. Thomas, we studied the existing imagery and iconography of the saint. We decided on a simple frontal image that incorporated a scroll and a quill, indicating his work as a scholar. He is dressed in the black and white of the Dominican habit. The old iconography of St. Thomas often included a sunburst, indicating that he was a shining light to the darkness of the middle ages. We also noticed that the old images showed St. Thomas with a receding hairline. We incorporated both of these features in our icon. Finally, St. Thomas was said to have been somewhat fat, so we drew him as a healthy, chubby saint rather than as an ascetic!

St. Thomas Aquinas

We had just started painting St. Thomas in the studio when covid hit. We finished St. Thomas

online as I and my local students together discovered the wonderful world of web cams and

Zoom and the intricacies of teaching and painting icons remotely. The current online classes

developed from that starting point.

This packet of St. Thomas includes all of the instructional material from the original class: the

instructional text (14 pages), step photographs (14 pages), color placement guides (4 pages), a

color formula sheet, 2 pages of line drawings, a page of various short sayings attributed to St.

Thomas, and a reflection page. It also includes a list of pigments and supplies.

As with all our packets, this packet is designed for those who have previously studied with the

Prosopon School of Iconology or its affiliated teachers. You must be familiar with the painting

techniques and terminology of the school to fully understand the instructions in the packet. If

you are new to icon painting, please visit our Classes page and consider enrolling in our Paint

Mixing and Pigments class, followed by one of our 9-week beginning series classes.

Protection of the Most Holy Mother of God icon and other fall classes

Mon, 25 Jul 2022 04:59:30 GMT

Protection of the Most Holy Mother of God icon and other fall classes

Surrounded by the heat of one of the warmest summers I can remember, I have spent the last week working on the drawing of the icon for our upcoming Fall Intermediate Class: The Protection of the Most Holy Mother of God. The Virgin is shown with her arms outspread, holding a white veil that symbolizes her protection over those who implored her help. This prototype was developed in the 12th century and is a beloved icon of the people of the Ukraine. The unfinished drawing of the image is pictured below.

Our work in painting this icon will be rooted in our prayers for peace in the Ukraine, and those prayers will be reflected in the icon by the details in our image: the bands of trim on the Virgin’s white veil will be painted in blue and gold (the national colors of the Ukraine), and her halo will have an optional decorative design of embossed sunflowers (the national flower of the Ukraine).

UPDATE: Fall Classes 2022 have now ended! The Protection of the Mother of God class is complete, as is the beginning level Theotokos class. I am blessed to have dedicated, hard-working students who paint with me weekly during the year to complete these projects and learn more about the joy of icon painting! May God continue to prosper the work of our hands in 2023!

New Packet: Icon of The Kazan Mother of God

Thu, 19 May 2022 05:02:59 GMT

New Packet: Icon of The Kazan Mother of God

The icon of the Kazan Mother of God is one of the most loved of all the images of Our Lady. It is the newest tutorial packet from St. Elizabeth Icon Studio .

According to Russian tradition, this icon appeared in the city of Kazan in 1579. It is attributed to saving Moscow and All Russia from the invasion of the Poles in 1612.

Those who are not familiar with the Orthodox or Roman Catholic traditions sometimes question the practice of referring to Jesus’ mother Mary as the Mother of God. But this title dates to the earliest days of the Church. Mary was solemnly proclaimed Mother of God by the Council of Chalcedon in the year 431 AD. Long before that time, in the third century, the Christians of Egypt addressed this prayer to Mary:

We fly to thy patronage, O holy Mother of God:

despise not our petitions in our necessities,

but deliver us from all evil,

O glorious and blessed Virgin.

As the painting of Byzantine icons began to flourish in the fourth century, many images of the Mother of God developed. Today there are over three hundred variations of icons of Mary. The Kazan Mother of God is part of the genre of icons known as the Hodegitria Mother of God: images in which the Virgin is presenting her Son to the world, telling us that He is the one to follow, the one who knows the way.

The Kazan Mother of God

Christ Emmanuel is dressed in the cloth of gold that symbolizes his divinity. The red band on his shoulder is a klav, a symbol of authority in the Byzantine court. His right hand is extended to us in a sign of blessing—his two extended fingers symbolize his two natures, human and divine. His three fingers together symbolize the Trinity. The Virgin is dressed in a red outer robe, symbolizing her humanity. The gold stars on her robe symbolize her virginity—before, during and after the birth of Christ. In accord with ancient iconographic tradition, the names of the Virgin and the Christ Child are inscribed in Greek abbreviations: MP OY, Mother of God, and IC XC, Jesus Christ.

• • •

Tutorial packets help students paint at home, using what they have learned in workshops taught by the Prosopon School of Iconology or its affiliates. The instructions are based upon the school’s methods and techniques, and it is assumed that those painting from packets are familiar with the school’s terminology. For cost and instructions on ordering, go to the tutorial packets page.

OVERVIEW OF CLASSES 2022

Fri, 31 Dec 2021 05:06:41 GMT

OVERVIEW OF CLASSES 2022

Three sessions of classes are planned for 2022: Winter-Spring (February-April), Summer (June-August) and Fall (September-November). We will kick off the year with a Paint Mixing & Pigments Class in mid January. All classes are taught via Zoom and are recorded. Students have access to the Zoom recordings for three months after the completion of each session. See CLASSES for exact dates.

BEGINNING CLASSES:

Our beginning classes consist of (1) an introductory three-day series of a Paint Mixing & Pigments Class to teach students how to mix egg tempera paint for Prosopon style painting, followed by (2) a nine-week Saturday series of project classes to teach the application of the fundamental techniques in the development of an image, using the skills learned in the paint mixing classes. The icons for the beginning classes are small and simple, designed to give ample time in class to focus on the basics of the process. The Archangel Michael as a Warrior, the Archangel Gabriel as a Messenger, and the Virgin Mary (Theotokos) are each taught once a year on a 6”x8” icon board, which is included in the cost of the class. First-time students are given the basic supplies they need to begin icon painting. Also included in the cost of the project classes is the opportunity for individual critiques on Tuesdays. See CLASSES for more information.

INTERMEDIATE CLASSES:

Throughout 2022 our intermediate classes will focus on painting the basic images of a traditional Deisis tier of icons: Christ, the Theotokos, St. John the Baptist, and the Archangels Michael and Gabriel (pictured below). These icons will all be half-figure images, based roughly on the icons from the Khilandar Monastery on Mt. Athos. Students may choose to work on either a 10” x 15” rectangular board with a kovcheg or an 8” x 15” flat board with a pointed top. Less experienced students may choose to paint a smaller icon of only the head and shoulders of the image. All boards will be available for purchase through the studio. To schedule our intermediate classes, students must have some previous experience painting with the Prosopon School, either from Prosopon workshops or study with a teacher who teaches the Prosopon techniques. They must also be capable of mixing their own egg tempera paint, and they should have a basic understanding of the application of roskrish, lines, highlights and floats. See CLASSES for more details.

In Memoriam: Fr. Rex Broussard

Sun, 05 Sep 2021 05:23:09 GMT

Father Rex works on an icon of the Archangel Gabriel at the studio in 2019.

Icon of St. Basil the Great, by the hand of Father Rex Broussard

In Memoriam: Fr. Rex Broussard

It is with great sadness that we share the news of the death of Father Rex Broussard, icon painter and the studio’s chaplain. He died on Sunday, August 29, 2021, at the age of 80.

Father Rex served as a Roman Catholic priest for 54 years in the Diocese of Lafayette. In 1995, he began painting icons. For more than 20 years he regularly attended icon workshops with the Prosopon School of Iconology in Chatawa, Mississippi, and Grand Coteau, Louisiana.

Locally he painted at St. Elizabeth Icon Studio , and he served as chaplain in residence at the studio after his retirement in 2018.

His large icon of Saint Basil the Great, pictured below, is in Saint Basil Catholic Church in Judice, Louisiana.

Father Broussard served as pastor at various parishes in the Diocese of Lafayette, and he was the former Brigade Chaplain of the National Guard 256th Brigade. (Read more about his parish activities and military career in his full obituary in The Daily Advertiser newspaper .)

Funeral services were held on September 3 at the Cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist. The Most Reverend J. Douglas Deshotel, Bishop of Lafayette, celebrated the funeral Mass, and the Reverend Michael Russo served as homilist. The funeral Mass was recorded and can be viewed on the Diocese YouTube channel . Prayer cards for Father Rex are available from the studio upon request; email fayemdrobnic@gmail.com .

Father Rex will be dearly missed by the iconographers who knew him and loved him. Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. Memory eternal!

St. Joseph and Christ Emmanuel: Zoom classes start Jan. 8

Sun, 13 Dec 2020 05:42:11 GMT

St. Joseph and Christ Emmanuel: Zoom classes start Jan. 8

St. Joseph and Christ Emmanuel icon in progress

The icon we will paint shows St. Joseph holding Christ Emmanuel in a portrait of fatherly tenderness and love.

Class details:

Friday Afternoons 2:00 – 4:30 pm Central Time, 11 Sessions, starting Jan. 8 and ending March 19, the feast day of St. Joseph

Cost: $275

To Register, email steicon@aol.com

Participation Requirements: Students must have some previous experience painting with the Prosopon School, either from Prosopon workshops or study with a teacher who teaches the Prosopon techniques. They should have a basic understanding of roskrish, lines, highlights and floats. Students must also be capable of mixing their own egg tempera paint.

We all paint together in these classes. On the day before each class, I email students written text instructions and step photographs of the work to be done the following day. During the class, I explain the work, give detailed instructions for each step, and demonstrate the painting. Students paint with me as we develop the image. There are opportunities to ask questions as needed. The classes are recorded, and the recordings are sent to the students the day after the class. Work not completed in class is completed at home before the next class. For those students desiring critiques of their work, there are separate critique classes available on Tuesday afternoons or Tuesday evenings.

A simpler design is also available for less experienced painters or those who prefer it.

Teaching Icon Painting during COVID-19

Sat, 15 Aug 2020 06:34:49 GMT

Teaching Icon Painting during COVID-19 - St. Elizabeth Icon Studio

In the middle of March 2020, life was unexpectedly turned upside down by the spread of the coronavirus in Louisiana. In accord with directives from our governor, we closed the studio and suspended all scheduled icon painting classes. We will remain closed for the rest of 2020, at least — except for students coming by appointment to buy supplies.

When I was a little girl, my grandmother used to say, “God never closes a door but that he opens a window.” I have thought of her often during these times. For some, this time of quarantine has been a trial, but for me it has been a time of great opportunity and growth — a time of revisioning and reimagining, of attending to ideas and projects that before had only been distant visions.

The studio web cam

All of our icon painting classes have transitioned to a Zoom format. Zoom was a great learning experience for me! I had never heard of it before we quarantined. We started in May with weekly classes on Tuesdays. That first began as a way for me to continue instructions on projects that my students were trying to finish—the Noli Me Tangere from Dmitri Andreyev’s February Prosopon workshop in Grand Coteau; icons of the Crucifixion that I had taught here at the studio; and various other icons that students had been working on under my direction in our monthly studio classes. Then an interesting thing happened. Students from out of town began to join out classes — some old students who had moved away, others who lived too far away to come to the studio regularly, and some new students. Together we learned how to make the classes work, with screen sharing of high-quality photographs that students send in every week for me to critique. We all learn from each other’s work.

In mid-July I started teaching a project class on Fridays — in response to a student’s “great need” to paint an icon of St. Thomas Aquinas for her son. This was another stretch of learning for me, as I entered the world of web cams and recordings. The results have been amazingly positive. I soon learned that in order for these classes to be successful, I had to do a lot of advance preparation so that the students would have the information and visual aids they needed in order for us to paint together remotely.

There are of course some disadvantages: I cannot be hands-on with my students to say, “your paint is too thick” or “look, let me show you how to do that.” On the other hand, it has forced them to be more independent with their painting. And they really are getting much better instruction from me, both written text instructions and step photographs and diagrams, as well as a bird’s eye view of live painting demonstrations during the class and a recording they can refer to afterward to see it again if need be. In addition to that, we can now include students from anywhere in the world. I really do believe the pros outweigh the cons with this style of teaching!

St. Thomas Aquinas in progress

The Thomas Aquinas class has been so successful that in mid-September we’re going to start an icon of St. Ann and the Virgin , which is a perfect mother-daughter icon. We’ll finish that before Thanksgiving. In January we’ll begin an icon of St. Joseph and Christ , which we will finish on his feast day, March 19. Then we will paint the Salus Populi Romani , the powerful ancient icon of Our Lady and Christ, which is so greatly loved by the people of Rome and the people of the entire world. Information about all of these projects can be found on the CLASSES page . Just click the link here or above. If you are a student of the Prosopon School, you are welcome to join us for any of these classes.

I am also developing a line of Tutorial Packets, for students to work on individually at home. These packets are all based on classes that I have taught in the studio between 2007 and the present time. These are basically “workshops in a box.” Well, in an envelope. Each packet contains line drawings of the icon (or icons); about 12 pages of written text instructions; step-by-step photographs of the different stages of the painting development; diagrams of the placement of the highlights; photos of the finished icons; a list of supplies needed and more. There are two levels of packets: BASIC packets for those students just beginning to try to paint on their own, and INTERMEDIATE packets for those with a little more experience. The designs in the BASIC packets are very simple, and the text instructions about the process are very detailed. The designs in the INTERMEDIATE packets are more complex, and the instructions assume a basic knowledge about the process. At the time of this writing, we have two packets posted: a basic THEOTOKOS and an intermediate GUADALUPE. More packets will be coming in the near future, as soon as I can organize all the material for each. See the TUTORIAL PACKETS page for more information.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Regretfully, I am not able to take brand new beginning students at this time. (Editor’s note, April 2021: Beginner’s classes are now available! See the “Classes page of the site for more details.) All students must have taken at least one workshop with the Prosopon School or with one of its affiliated teachers. For more information about the Prosopon School, visit their website at www.prosoponschool.org . If you have taken one or more workshops with Prosopon or its teachers, but have never learned to mix the paint and paint on your own, contact me. I will be offering a class on Pigments and Paint Mixing as soon as I have enough interested students. I would love to hear from you!

God Writes Straight with Crooked Lines, Part 2

Thu, 09 Apr 2020 06:47:36 GMT

God Writes Straight with Crooked Lines, Part 2

Read Part 1 of this blog post .

In the 1980s and early 1990s, I regularly attended decorative painting workshops in Eureka, California, taught by JoSonja Jensen, an amazing American folk artist who is a master of folk art styles from all over the world (josonja.com). One of the workshops I attended was on Russian fairy tale painting, and in the course of that workshop, JoSonja demonstrated her interpretation of an icon of Mary and the Christ Child. I was so drawn to that simple image! In 1989 or 1990, I was also struck by an article in the New Orleans Times Picayune about the icons in the Greek Orthodox Cathedral in New Orleans, painted by an iconographer from Greece. I thought then, “I would love to learn to paint icons — but I can’t go to Greece to study painting.”

In the spring of 1993, I was back in Eureka attending another decorative painting workshop at JoSonja’s. At that time, her son Mark was the editor of their decorative painting magazine The Artist’s Journal. Mark said that they had just learned that there was an icon painter in Pennsylvania painting icons with JoSonja’s line of acrylic paint. They wanted to do an article about him for their publication, and they were looking for someone to write the article. I volunteered to go to Pennsylvania, meet the iconographer, and write the article for the journal.

In June 1993 I attended my first iconography workshop, at the St. John of Damascus School of Sacred Art at the Antiochian Village in Ligonier, Pennsylvania, taught by Philip Zimmerman ( www.philzicons.com ). Upon registering for the workshop, I was sent a list of six books to read before the workshop. I read all of them, and the knowledge I gained from those books served me well as I began my studies. Below is the list of the books:

The Meaning of Icons by L. Ouspensky & V. Lossky
The Icon: The Image of the Invisible by Fr. Egon Sendler
On the Divine Images by St. John of Damascus
On the Holy Icons by St. Theodore the Studite
The Painter’s Manuel of Dionysius of Fourna
An Iconographer’s Patternbook: The Stroganov Tradition

Taking that first icon-painting workshop opened a new world for me. It gave a new focus to my painting and to my life. I read every book on icons that I could get my hands on — and in 1993 there were not nearly as many books available as there are today. I took several more workshops with Philip, both at the Antiochian Village in Pennsylvania and at Beckwith Retreat Center in Fairhope, Alabama. I also began painting icons at home, in acrylics. Phil taught and painted in a Macedonian style. The JoSonja paints, similar to traditional gouache paints, adapted well to that style of iconography.

The more I read and studied about icons, the more I became attracted to the Russian style of icon painting. The historic Russian icons, painted in the traditional medium of egg tempera, did not look at all like the acrylic work that I was doing. At one of Phil’s workshops, I met Fredi Haldors, a delightful lady who had studied at the Icon Institute at Mt. Angel Benedictine Abbey near Portland, Oregon. She put me in touch with the teacher, iconographer Charles Rohrbacher (New Jerusalem Workshop) from Juneau, Alaska. At that time, Charles was teaching iconography both at Mt. Angel Abbey in Oregon and at the St. John Neumann Retreat Center in Tallahassee, Florida. Charles had studied with Orthodox iconographer Dmitry Shkolnik, and also with Byzantine Catholic iconographer and Jesuit Father Egon Sendler of the Centre d’Etudes Russes in Paris. I drove from Lafayette to Tallahassee in 1994 and took my first workshop with Charles. Charles was an inspirational spiritual guide as well as an accomplished icon painter, and the world of Byzantine iconography continued to expand for me under his guidance. He introduced me to painting in egg tempera.

I returned to study with Charles again in Tallahassee in 1995, and there I met Jude Fischer, one of the icon painters from Madonna House in Combermere, Canada. She later sent me information about a Russian icon painter, Vladislav Andreyev ( www.prosoponschool.org ) who lived in New York and taught icon painting workshops throughout the United States. Vladislav and his son Dmitri were teaching an introductory icon painting workshop at St. Mary of the Pines Retreat Center in Chatawa, Mississippi in January 1996. I attended that workshop and fell in love with Vladislav’s style of painting — egg tempera horizontal-floating technique that approximated much of the work of the 15th century Russian icon painters.

For the remainder of the 1990s, I continued to study both with Charles Rohrbacher at Mt. Angel Abbey in Oregon and with Vladislav Andrejev and his sons Dmitri and Nikita at St. Mary of the Pines in Mississippi. I also read and studied everything about icons that I could find, and I painted icons at home. Doing the work at home, on one’s own, is critical to the development of an iconographer. As students, we learn in workshops and classes, but we make the work our own at home, practicing what we have learned, training our hands to handle the brush and our eyes to see the essence of the designs and our spirits to submit to the will of the Master.

As a result of my reading and studies, I realized that I was coming to know more about the Orthodox Church than I knew about my own Roman Catholic Church. So I enrolled in a study program in ministry with Loyola University (LIMEX) in New Orleans, and in 1999 I received a Master’s Degree in Pastoral Studies, with a ministry focus in iconography. (I was the only student to complete the degree work in the field of iconography, studying the role of the Byzantine icon in the Roman Catholic Church.)

Over the years, I have attended workshops and studied with other master iconographers:

Heather MacKean ( http://heathermackean.com ), a gifted Canadian iconographer who studied with students of Leonid Ouspensky;
Marek Czarnecki ( Seraphic Restorations ) and the Russian master iconographer Ksenia Pokrovsky ( Wikipedia )of Hexameron ( https://www.hexaemeron.org )
Peter Pearson ( Wikipedia ), an American priest and author of two painting books on icons;
the talented young Romanian iconographer Daniel Neculae ( http://danielneculaeiconographer.blogspot.com )
the Russian masters Anton & Katya Danieko ( icona-skiniya.com ) and the Russian gilding specialist Oksana Stanovskaya of the Russian Gilding School ( Russian Gilding School )

Each of these masters had special gifts to share with me. Each broadened my treasure of knowledge and understanding. Each left a mark on my life. But my home throughout the years remained with Vladislav Andrejev and the Prosopon School of Iconology, where I continue to study, to coordinate workshops, and now to teach as an affiliate teacher.

In 2012 I opened my studio in my back yard — an old German prisoner-of-war barracks building from World War II that was moved onto the property by the original owners of my home in the 1950s. Here I teach icon painting to both local students and out-of-towners. Together we paint and study, share our joys and sorrows, and pray together for ourselves and for the life of the world.

I am now at a point in my life where I am passing on what I have received to a younger generation. We are all part of that living tradition of icon painters that has endured from the earliest centuries of our Church — from the days when Christ walked the earth and touched his face to a linen cloth, the days when the first image of Our Lord was painted by some unknown artist, the days when St. Luke met Our Lady and learned the great story of our salvation. From those days to now, and into the future. Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!

God Writes Straight with Crooked Lines, Part 1

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 07:47:41 GMT

God Writes Straight with Crooked Lines, Part 1

“Grace builds on nature.”

As a child in the 1950s, I loved to color. I had coloring books of every size and description. One of my favorites was a coloring book of Peter Pan and Wendy and Tinkerbell and the Lost Boys of Neverland. Alice in Wonderland was a close second. I had a box of crayons with 72 different colors in it, and I spent hours coloring very neatly within the lines, lost in a world of fantasy and richness and beauty. My mother thought I was going to be an artist. My most vivid memory of first grade in 1951 was making magical orange construction paper pumpkin figures with glued-on arms and legs of purples and greens and reds and blues. To this day the thought of those pumpkin figures brings joy to my heart!

Our elementary and high school in Patterson, Louisiana, had no art classes, and my world of color got lost amid a study of English, science, math, music and basketball. In college in the 1960s I loved the smell of oil paints that accompanied some of my art friends, but by that time I thought being an artist was a gift other people had, not me. I envied them a little, but I was caught up in my history and English and philosophy books. I thought I wanted to be a writer. I ended up with a liberal arts degree. After an undirected year in grad school, I went back to get another undergraduate degree in secondary education. I got married and taught high school for a few years. Then we started a family and I became a stay-at-home mom.

In 1976, my younger daughter was in morning 4-year-old nursery school, and I saw an ad in the local newspaper for painting classes. I arranged with a friend to trade off afternoon childcare one day a week, and I began the weekly classes. We were doing tole painting, which is decorative painting on pieces of wood—apples, oranges, carrots, daisies. I had never held a paintbrush in my hand before, and my first attempts were rough—but I loved the smell of the oil paint!

Through my teacher, I subscribed to a decorative painting magazine. I learned that there was a whole world of decorative painters developing around the country, organized as the NSTDP—the National Society of Tole and Decorative Painters. After a year, my local teacher stopped teaching. I realized that if I wanted more instruction, I would have to travel for it. I began studying with Priscilla Hauser, who taught summer seminars in Destin, Florida. My mother would take care of my two daughters for a week or two in the summer, and I would go to paint in Florida. Life was good! I would come home and paint for the rest of the year with what I had learned in the summer workshops.

The more I painted, the better I painted—a valuable life lesson! In 1981 I taught my first decorative painting class—six students around my kitchen table. I loved painting, and I loved teaching. We moved an old shotgun house into our back yard, and it became my painting studio. My classes grew, and I used the money I earned to continue taking workshops myself.

I began attending the annual national decorative painting conventions and studying with other teachers. I traveled to Nebraska to learn fine-art color theory from Ann Kingslan, and I began going to Eureka, California, once or twice a year to study folk art with JoSonja Jansen. By the mid 1980s, my painting medium had transitioned from oil paints to acrylics—much more convenient for painting in South Louisiana, where oil paints took forever and a day to dry! JoSonja was a master at teaching folk art in acrylics, and she became my mentor and my inspiration. I treasure the years I studied with JoSonja, and my best work in decorative painting was done under her instruction.

From 1990 to1992, I experienced a number of major changes in my life. I closed my decorative painting business; we sold our family home; my children went away to college; my 22-year marriage ended in divorce; and my mother died. I moved to Lafayette, Louisiana, in 1992 and began a new life. I brought with me my decorative painting skills, my love of art and music, and my Roman Catholic faith. In 1993 I discovered icons.

Read Part 2 of this blog post.

Our Lady of Good Help: The Challenge of Writing a New Roman Catholic Icon

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 06:53:31 GMT

Our Lady of Good Help: The Challenge of Writing a New Roman Catholic Icon

Many of the saints depicted in the icons I have written are saints that are common to both the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox churches. These are typically images that have developed in the Eastern church over the centuries, in accord with the canons. But religious iconography is part of the stream of the living Tradition of the Christian Church, so the necessity to write images of new saints arises after they are canonized.

The Roman Catholic iconographer is also called to prayerfully explore the images of the Blessed Virgin Mary that have risen within the Roman Catholic Church as a result of the apparitions of the Virgin that have received proper authentication—images such as the Virgin of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Fatima, and Our Lady of Lourdes.

One little-known Marian apparition in the United States occurred in Wisconsin in 1859, when Our Lady appeared to a young Belgian nun, Adele Brise. Known as Our Lady of Good Help, she instructed Adele to teach the children of the area their faith. A chapel and school were built on the site of the apparition, and it became a place of pilgrimage in the ensuing years. In 2010, after considerable investigation, Bishop David Ricken of the Diocese of Green Bay issued a decree on the authenticity of the apparitions. ( Read the bishop’s decree .)

Last year one of my students approached me about developing an image of Our Lady of Good Help. Dr. Catherine Stevenson is a member of the Order of Malta, which was planning a pilgrimage to the shrine. Catherine and I researched the existing iconography and then proceeded to develop an image that was somewhat Byzantine in style, yet was also true to Adele’s description of the Virgin: that she was dressed in dazzling white with a yellow sash, had long flowing blond hair and a crown of stars, and was surrounded by bright light. The existing imagery was inconsistent about whether her head was covered with a veil or bare. Our biggest challenge in developing the design was determining whether to cover her head in accord with traditional Byzantine iconography or to leave her with no head covering. In the end, Catherine left her image bare-headed, and I put a transparent white veil on mine.

We began the design with a classical Byzantine drawing of the Virgin in the standing orans (or prayer) position. We removed the Byzantine head covering, gave her long flowing hair, and slightly restyled the garments, adding a yellow sash. We painted all of her garments white, using Vladislav Andrejev’s crystal-garment technique: a soft green undercoat, layers of multi-colored pastel highlights, and white overpainting. A few photos of the steps in the process, as well as the finished icons, are below.