How to Become an Icon Painter
Like learning any new skill, to learn iconography and become an icon painter requires patience and practice. You’ll find it helpful to dedicate regular time to practicing, whether that’s in a space at home, an online class, or in a studio. The rewards won’t just be your very own painted icons, you’ll also find peace and a sacred connection in the process of creating them. Your icon painting practice can become something that’s very mindful and calming. So how do you get started on your creative journey? We’ve answered a few of the big questions for you right here!
Where Can You Learn How to Paint Icons?
You can learn the basics of icon painting with us online or in-person at Edinburgh School of Icon Painting! We have a dedicated Online Beginner’s Icon Painting Course where you’ll be led by our expert tutor Basia in weekly Zoom sessions with live demonstrations you can follow to paint your own icon of the Mother of God. We also have our Beginner’s Icon Painting Course Recordings – you’ll get lifetime access to recorded sessions for you to complete at your own pace from the comfort of your own home!
For folks interested in in-person classes, we welcome all ability levels to our studio in Edinburgh for our Monday Classes, Intensive Courses and Weekend Workshops. Basia will teach you the basic techniques of traditional iconography, and you’ll connect with our wonderful community of icon painters.
What Materials Do You Need for Icon Painting?
As you develop your style and skills you’ll naturally develop preferences for types of brushes and brands of pigments, but when you’re first starting out we recommend to keep things simple while you master the basic techniques – a few small brushes and small pots of a basic spectrum of pigment shades will allow you to paint a range of icons.
We are fans of Jackson’s Artist Pigments which come in handy 10g pots if you want a very small amount to try out in the beginning. Paintbrushes suitable for watercolour are recommended, sizes 0 through to 5 are usually best as they allow for the smaller details to be added to your icons. The natural fibre brushes such as Squirrel Mix brushes give very good results, but synthetic/vegan alternatives are also good.
Our icon painting starter set is a great all-in-one kit covering the basics for our beginner students, each set contains 3 high-quality brushes, 10 x 25g pots of artist pigments, and a prepared gesso board ready for your first icon!
Do You Need to be Religious to be an Icon Painter?
It’s true that iconography’s origins are deeply rooted in Orthodox Christian religion and the expression of a holy, sacred connection, but in modern day iconography we truly believe that people of any or no religion can find a sacred connection through painting icons; whether that’s with yourself, or a higher power/being. Taking the time to learn a new skill, and dedicating yourself to a creative practice can be highly rewarding – over on our Substack we even wrote a post about how each step of creating an Icon is like a meditative practice.
Ready to get started?
Discover all our courses, classes and materials right here, and feel free to get in touch with any questions you have, we’d be happy to help you find the right place to start.
