Workshops

— Beauty Shall Save The World
Fedor Dostoevsky

Come and See | What to Expect

DATES & LOCATIONS for 2008 WORKSHOPS

SIX DAYS OF CREATION Workshops in icon painting are led by world-renowned Master Iconographer Xenia Pokrovsky. Iconographers, Marek Czarnecki, and Anna Pokrovskya-Gouriev, Xenia's daughter, assist with instruction.

St. Tikhon Orthodox Seminary
South Canaan, PA 18459
Sunday, June 22 - Saturday, June 28, 2008
Application

St. Michael the Archangel Orthodox Church
3701 St. Michael Church Drive, Louisville, KY
Sunday, August 3 - Saturday, August 9, 2008
Application

Living Waters Catholic Reflection Center
101 Living Waters Lane, Maggie Valley, NC
Sunday, August 31 - Saturday, September 6, 2008
Application

Tuition of $675 includes lessons in icon writing, all materials necessary to complete an icon, a detailed instruction manual, and prototypes.

COME AND SEE

Xenia Pokrovsky invites you to explore her gallery collection. Not her collection of icons written for Patriarchs and Popes or those venerated in churches and monasteries around the world, but a collection of her most highly valued work - her students. "Over 40 years ago, in a time of Russia's misery, my spiritual father, the priest Alexander Men of Blessed Memory, urged me to begin icon writing. I know that I must do all I can to prepare others to fill this great need for proclaiming our Lord's salvation in line and color and beauty." Enter Gallery Collection.

WHAT TO EXPECT

Icons are often referred to as being a type of primitive art because of their lack of "artistic naturalism." The neglect is intentional.

Icons are works of "spiritual realism" not artistic naturalism. They describe the reality of eternity, which our bodily eyes cannot perceive, nor our time-expensed minds conceive. Icons invite an encounter with the Kingdom of God; they enable an immediate experience of God's presence. Icons make vivid to us the triumphant nearness of "those who have fought the good fight and have received their crowns." Icons reveal to us the on-looking ministries of angels who assist us in our earthly travail and our struggle against the invisible powers of darkness.

SIX DAYS OF CREATION WORKSHOPS with Xenia Pokrovsky, founder of Izograph Studio, provide training in icon painting that is immediate, practical and of the highest quality. Students receive intensive instruction in the language of iconography from the perspective of the iconographic canon and traditional Orthodox Church teaching on the practices of prayer and silence.

By the time Pokrovsky left Russia in 1991, she had trained hundreds of students in the technique of egg-tempera, using a palette of gold, semi-precious stones and clays. Six Days of Creation Workshops are a unique opportunity to work closely with this great master who attracts students from all over the world. Both the novice and those who have acquired reputations as professional iconographers will welcome the depth of instruction that Pokrovsky's decades of experience bring to her students.

Instruction includes:

• Preparation of the wood panel.
• Making animal hide glue and glue linen to the board.
• Making artistís gesso of marble and chalk base.
• Finding an appropriate prototype and create a drawing.
• Transferring the drawing onto the board.
• Making egg tempera painting-medium from egg yolks.
• Using natural pigments to make paint.
• Applying first basecoat of color (roskrish).
• Lighting the figure.
• Applying additional layers of highlighting and finishing.
• Making calligraphic inscriptions.
• Varnishing the icon.
• Assiste - painting thin gold lines and applying gold leaf.

Workshops alone cannot produce an iconographer, with all that implies in terms of knowledge and experience, and more importantly, wisdom. It takes disciplined practice and the humility to accept direction. Through direct access to our instructors, the serious student of iconography will receive continual support in developing the skills taught in Six Days of Creation Workshops.