Friday Goodie Bag April 26: St. Francis' original cloister and Narni's medieval festa
Some Substacks to follow and where to find good drawing instruction online
The Friday Goodie-bag posts are for posting short clippy things from around about, something like a weekly roundup. “Above the fold” - that is, above the paywall - I’ll put stuff of general interest for all subscribers. Below the fold will be more photos that I’ve taken over the years, short video clips and previews of big and interesting things to come. I recently bit the bullet and downloaded the entirety of my phone’s photo and video gallery onto my new something-ridiculous-terabyte data storage thing, so it’s all just a matter of clicking now; no more complicated upload software.
Today above the fold, we have some recommendations, both of people who can teach you or your kids to draw to a high standard with online courses and some Substacks that are well worth following, to help us all sort out what’s going on in the world.
For paid members I’ve got some fun video clips and photos of lovely things that haven’t been published anywhere else, and a special treat: a high resolution downloadable image of the Sinai Pantocrator, the incredible 6th century painting that we talked about this week, that survived the Iconoclastic crises, tucked safely away in the remote St. Catherine’s monastery in the Sinai desert.
At 24 bit and 400 dpi, it’s eminently zoom-able and would be a great way of introducing a beginning or aspiring iconographer to this great work. Because it is possible to zoom in very closely, it is also ideal as an image to copy and learn from. It is a high enough quality image that it would do well as a print for a prayer corner.
Scroll down past the paywall to find and download it.
Meeting goals for The Sacred Images Project
And the reason I am able to do things like that - downloading my entire photo and video collection - is the recent uptick in paid memberships to this site. It’s really made a huge difference, so thanks to everyone.
I’ve been really gratified and more than a little relieved to see that I’m not the only one interested in this stuff. I was a bit worried that my nerdy fascination with ancient Christian sacred art was so niche-y that I’d be the only one and I’d have to take some horrible copywriting or translating job on the side to keep doing it.
But it turns out that not only am I not the only one who likes it, other people are seeing what I’ve been noticing; that there’s a big gap in general knowledge of the traditions and meaning of Christian sacred art out there, especially among English-speaking Latin-rite Catholics, and it really needs filling.
We’ve got a pretty big uphill climb here. I consider the paid members at The Sacred Images Project, and the patrons who contribute through the Ko-fi studio blog, Hilary White; Sacred Art, to be partners with me in this massive and probably lifelong undertaking.
Where we are now
Since my last “please sign up” post, “A note to our many new free subscribers,” we had a very encouraging burst of both free and paid subscribers, (and thanks again), but we’re still well under the mid-way goal of 126 paid subscriptions.
As of this week, we’ve got 80 paid members out of 2519 total subscribers, which is just over 3%. Which is a darn sight better than when I was starting to worry. Bumping the percentage up a whole point is better than I was expecting.
But it’s still well under 5%, (126 total), the minimum we need to keep body and soul together in the long run and to make it possible to keep doing this work - without the anxiety of wondering where the rent is coming from.
So I’m hoping that at least a few of the many, many people who have signed up since April 12th as free subscribers will consider upgrading to a paid membership. There’s fun extras as well as the fellowship of a group of people who really do take these things seriously and think they’re important.
The Sacred Images Project is a reader-supported publication where we talk about Christian sacred art, the first 1200 years. You can subscribe for free to get one and a half posts a week. For $9/month you get an in-depth article on this great sacred patrimony, plus extras like downloads, photos, videos and podcasts (in the works), as well as voiceovers of the articles, so you can cut back on screen time.
If you’d like to see my painting and drawing work, and maybe order a print or other item you can find it here:
Work update:
I’ll try not to ramble so much next time.
Learning to draw: it’s hard and it takes time
I get asked a lot how people can learn to draw to a high standard. One of the reasons I wanted to create the Friday Goodie-bag posts was to have a place to drop stuff like this, videos and links to online classes. But I thought I’d start with a warning. I don’t want to put anyone off, but I’ve seen a lot of people start looking into it and even get started, and then get completely intimidated by how much sheer work of concentration it takes. This is one of the reasons I’m not any time soon going to be offering courses, online or otherwise, in drawing.
Taken seriously and practiced in a concentrated way for a long time with proper instruction, it will change you in ways you didn’t even know existed. I’ve written a lot about the things this training does to your brain, most recently here: “How learning to draw gave me superpowers”. But it’s worth repeating: that kind of major change, we might even call it a neurological or physiological alteration, isn’t something that happens overnight, and it’s not painless.
Four starting points
Anyway, I’m not going to write yet another big post about it, but if you think you might be serious, here are a few ways you can start getting an idea of how to go forward.
Stephen Bauman
The video at the top of the post is by Stephen Bauman. He’s a good well trained atelier style classical realist instructor. He’ll tell you all about the Bargues and a lot of other stuff. His YouTube channel is one of the places I recommend getting started with. Here’s his “drawing essentials” playlist:
Florent Farges
Another is Florent Farges. His playlist, “Teach yourself to draw” gives a great idea what’s involved.
He’s got a pretty good Patreon channel, but also package courses through his website. I’d especially recommend the colour theory one, which is probably unique. He also does very good pep-talk and encouragement videos.
Sadie Valeri
The third is an actual atelier that has, since Covid I think, (and the skyrocketing prices of San Francisco commercial properties) gone completely online. Her course seems to be a good medium-level version for hobbyists who want to take it seriously and for people with aspirations to professionalism. Not expensive, and good levels of online interaction.
Juliette Aristides
The fourth is for if you are absolutely sure that you want this to be your profession. It’s a professional level full time programme, and expensive. But it’s by one of the best in the world, Juliette Aristides. If you want to be a professional and can’t get to an atelier in meatspace, this is the one. The Terracotta Programme. She’s also written books that are excellent for parents who want their children to get a good start.
Some Substacks I follow and recommend
I get a lot of people saying they “miss” my other writing work, where I talk a lot of blustery stuff about the corruption in the Church and the end of the world and all that. No, I’m not going to go back to it. Sometimes, as with the two Rupnik posts, I’ll talk about it if it’s relevant to our subject and really seems fitting or needed.
But there are other people who are doing that kind of work much better than I ever did. People who are more thoughtful than doomy-gloomy.
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Frank is one of the few pulling the camera back far enough to see that depopulation, or this or that hot topic, is not the problem; it’s just one of many symptoms of decivilisation. He’s one of those guys who started out on the “left” but who was just too good at noticing patterns to stay there…
“Woke is not the problem”
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John needs more exposure for doing this much good work. He mostly does long-form video conversations (that the young folk these days call “podcasts”) on broader topics about how our civilisation is going (not well) and what we might be able to do about it (more than you’d think).
More stuff behind the big green door. Subscribe and join us!
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