Instructional Resources for Catholic Icon Painters: The Icon Painter's Handbook and the online Academy Course

A fully online and remote formation for icon painters, by a British master iconographer

I am pleased to recommend to our readers The Icon Painter’s Handbook by Ian Knowles, which is available here and here Ian is a English Catholic icon painter with many commissions under his belt, and a former student of Aidan Hart. He produces this book with the blessing of his former teacher, who contributed the Foreword. As a good student of Mr Hart, one of the foremost Orthodox iconographers in the English speaking world, Ian has excellent technique and understanding of the tradition. Also, incidentally, in the manner of his former teacher, he refers to icon “painting”, and does not conform to what began as an affectation and has become a contemporary fashion in the English speaking world, that of referring to the process as “writing”!

This book can be used by itself, or in conjunction with the first and foundational module of Ian’s excellent four-module online icon-painting course, which offers a full formation in iconography, the Academy Course in Icon Painting. This offers regular real-time online meetings with Ian and other students for questions and discussion, as well as a full set of recorded videos and materials.

I asked him if this full formation is available to those living in America. He told me, “Yes! The online programme is done remotely and at different levels. First there are the four modules, all now recorded and available. Purchased once with lifetime access. Then there is the Academy, which is open to all those students for mutual support etc., with a monthly lecture program, and then email critiques, one-on-one tutorials via Zoom, and weekly tutorial groups via Zoom, of which we have one comprising of four students from the USA and who would welcome new members.”

At nearly 300 pages, this is just Volume 1 of a proposed four-volume set, covering all the introductory principles of drawing, painting and understanding what icons are. Once you get to the end of this course, it will equip the more resourceful to continue self-directed study, applying the principles to other subjects. Otherwise, you can sign on to the online courses that Ian offers through the Academy Course. 

This book is available in hard-back, in pdf, or as an interactive, electronic flipbook in which there are embedded demonstration videos. You can follow this link: www.eliasicons.co.uk/icon-painters-handbook to see a more detailed description of the content, and even see how a flipbook works! It is more than a simple paint-an-icon sort of book, but it is designed to help in the formation of an iconographer as painter of sacred art. Theology and spirituality are integrated into practice, fundamental principles into precise artistic skills and as such it is Catholic friendly.

After leaving the studio of Aidan Hart, Ian started to take commissions and taught icon painting for several years as the head of the Bethlehem Icon Centre, which he founded and led (and which was endorsed by the local Melkite Church, as well as the Prince’s Foundation School of Traditional Arts). Some readers may remember that I wrote about this at the time. An article about Ian and his school appeared in the Jerusalem Post here.

After the chaos of Covid, Ian returned to the UK and started to offer workshops there. In parallel with the in-person teaching, he recorded videos. All four modules of this full formation are now recorded and available. The book accompanies the first module. 

In his foreword Aidan writes of the book and Knowle’s teaching: “Ian Knowles has drawn on his experience as an icon painter and teacher to assemble this beautifully designed Icon Painter’s Handbook, and in so doing has made an important contribution towards increasing the skill of icon painters in the West, both experienced and learners. This thoroughly revised edition incorporates refinements suggested by his teaching, as well as a thorough knowledge of the icon's theological tradition.”

Examples of his work follow.

Interestingly, in recent years, Ian has been working on the development of what he feels can be a contemporary English style, and his starting point for this is the work of Matthew Paris, the 13th-century Gothic illuminator from the School of St Albans. You can see examples of how Ian has approached this on his website. This is something that I have been doing myself and writing about for about 10 years now - here is a past NLM article in which I make the case for this, and another here. Ian and I reached the conclusion about the value of Paris’ work today quite independently but I am glad that the “movement” is beginning to gain momentum. A number of the plates I painted for the Little Oratory were based on the 13th-century Westminster Psalter, the illuminations of which come out of this Gothic school.

As I explain in the second of the articles linked above, I think neo-English Gothic is particularly appropriate for the Anglo-American Catholic Church in general (and not just the English Church), most especially for the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham churches... so perhaps you might like to look at Ian’s work and consider some commissions!

A Charming Film About Icon Painter Aidan Hart, His Work, and His Connection to the Bethlehem Icon Centre

Here is a beautiful short video about icon painter Aidan Hart. The video was made when he was visiting the Bethlehem Icon Center run by Ian Knowles. The Bethlehem Icon Centre is a partner institution of www.Pontifex.University, where the Master of Sacred Arts course provides the theoretical basis to understanding images in the Catholic tradition, including icons. (Video by Joubert and Marija Joubert, courtesy of the Bethlehem Icon Center.)

Aidan has been a great influence on me. I first met him about 30 years ago, when I was trying to learn to paint in egg tempera from tubes. In a casual conversation with a friend in London, I was describing my difficulties with the medium. He said to me that he knew someone who used that medium and gave me the address of a priest called Fr Athanasius Ledwich. At this point, I wasn’t even Christian, although I was starting to search for a better way of life, so there was no mention of icons or sacred art, and I wasn’t even thinking along these lines.

Encouraged by my friend, I wrote to Fr Athanasius asking for help in painting technique. I wondered if I could visit him, even if it was just to stand to look over his shoulder for an afternoon so that I could watch him using the medium. A week later I had a letter from Brother Aidan Hart. As it turned out, Fr Ledwich had never painted an icon in his life and passed the letter on to someone who had (my friend was, in fact, a casual acquaintance who barely knew Fr Athanasius). In his letter, Br Aidan invited me to stay with him for a weekend. I telephoned him, and we arranged that he would pick me up at Birmingham New Street station forecourt.

“How will I know you?” I asked him.

“I'm over six feet tall and look like a monk,” he said. “You’ll recognize me.”

Just to show how little I knew of this world, I remember standing at the gate to platform 7, the appointed meeting point and looking around. Then in the distance, I saw this tall man walking towards me, with a long beard, black robes and a cylindrical hat.

“Oh my God,” I thought. “It’s Rasputin.”

Nevertheless, I instantly connected with him and liked him. He was so generous in teaching me all that I could possibly learn that weekend. It was also my introduction to icons and the Eastern Rite.

He was a Rassaphore monk at that point - he talks about this phase of his life in the video. I remember him telling me much later that when he was a hermit, surprisingly, his life was much busier than later on when he was a working artist with a family. People used to flock to see him, even though he was in an isolated spot in rural Shropshire. I think he told me that in the last year he was living in the hermitage, 3,000 people visited.

In the video, Aidan also talks of his connection with Ian Knowles, the directory of the Bethlehem Icon Centre. I met Ian - I’m thinking perhaps 15 years ago now- at an icon painting workshop run by Aidan in Shropshire. It was obvious then that he was a talented artist.

One of the great advantages of learning to paint with Aidan, I always thought, is that he always explained not only what to do, but why we do it, and how through his own analysis of traditional icons he had worked out what to do. Aidan was self-taught and so he always generously taught us his approach to this. This meant that we came out of his classes able to propel ourselves, to some degree at least, without constant supervision. It was these methods that became the starting point for my effort at articulating some general principles for Christian art education, which I described later in my book, the Way of Beauty and built into a course called A Study of Artistic Method for Patrons and Artists, which is a 3-credit elective in Pontifex University’s Master of Sacred Arts program.

Aidan describes these methods in his excellent book The Techniques of Icon and Wall Painting.