Painting St Paisios: Garments
This is the first blog tutorial in the series on painting St Paisios, in which I will explain how I painted his garments. One of the difficulties we face when painting contemporary saints is black garments. Byzantine iconography is essentially colour given form and hypostasis by line. The whole byzantine painting language is based on the contrast between warm and cool, dark and light colours. There are no black garments in Byzantine or post-Byzantine iconography, but now we are faced with contemporary saints who wear contemporary black clerical dress and the expectation to paint them that way, which most often results in dead lifeless garments. So how can we paint black garments without them looking dead and lifeless? By painting them in color. With these garments I will paint two different coloured proplasmoi to distinguish them from each other, one warmer (Burgundy) and the other cooler (Green).
Proplasmoi
The proplasmos for the warm garments is a mixture of medium mars red and a little black.
The cool garment is made with yellow ochre and black.
1st Grapsimo (Warm)
The first grapsimo is the proplasmos plus a little black. we paint in the lines of the sketch in the darker areas and blend into the proplasmos.
2nd Grapsimo
The 2nd is the 1st plus a little black. We build this up within the 1st Grapsimo.
3rd Grapsimo
2nd Grapsimo plus black. We paint this only in the darkest areas.
1st Grapsimo (Cool)
Here we add some black and a touch of mars red to the proplasmos. By making the grapsimo warmer than the proplasmos it helps to make the greenish colour stand out. Again I’m reworking the sketch and blending into the proplasmos.
Second Grapsimo (Cool)
The 2nd is the 1st plus a little black. Again we build this up within the 1st Grapsimo.
3rd Grapsimo
2nd Grapsimo plus black. We paint this only in the darkest areas.
1st Photisma (Warm)
The photismata for the warm garment will be cooler that the proplasmos and we do this by adding more black to the proplasmos to cool it and white to lighten it. Then we build up the forms of the 1st photisma.
1st Photisma Glaze (Warm)
We then take some of the 1st photisma and dilute it with egg emulsion and water to create a glaze. This we then use to blend the 1st photisma in the lightest areas so that there isn’t a harsh contrast. We also blend the transitions into the proplasmos without losing the forms of the 1st photisma.
2nd Photisma (Warm)
For the 2nd photisma I add white to the first. Because the garment is dark I only do two photismata and the 2nd one is only on the broader side of the figure.
1st Photisma (Cool)
Again for this photisma I ad a touch of black to cool it and then white to lighten it, and then build up the forms.
1st Photisma Glaze (Cool)
Again we then take some of the 1st photisma and dilute it with egg emulsion and water to create a glaze. This we then use to transition the 1st photisma and the proplasmos without losing the forms.
2nd Photisma (Cool)
Again for the 2nd photisma I add white to the 1st and only do two photismata with the 2nd only on the broader side of the figure to project the figure out towards the viewer.
Glory to God!
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