Alypius Loft Iconography & Fine Art

🌟 Saint Ephrem the Syrian 🌟 is a 4th century poetic theologian. He invites us through his hymns and writings to deepen our love for God and embrace humility. My favorite work is Hymns on Paradise.

Coming Soon...

Fancy a print? You can now pick up glicee icon prints of St Maximus the Confessor from my shop on Etsy!

Saint Maximus the Confessor Orthodox Icon Print - Etsy This Digital Prints item is sold by AlypiusLoft. Ships from Hendersonville, NC. Listed on Jan 22, 2024

Saint Maximus the Confessor
A digital painting for the feast. Prints will soon be available.
"If God is love, he who has love has God within himself."

For the feast of Saint Anthony the Great, the patron of my local parish!
I'm fond of the texture and warm color of the papyrus. It also naturally imbued a desirable, ancient material quality.

CHRIST PANTOCRATOR
🌟 AVAILABLE $475 🌟
Egg Tempera on traditional icon panel, 6x8in.
https://alypiusloft.etsy.com/listing/1656452243
I've always wanted to paint the Tetramorph images of the gospels, and this was a good opportunity to do it! I also have been wanting to use more indigo in my work in place of black. Though it may not be obvious, no black was used in this painting.

Saint Anthony the Great
🌟 AVAILABLE $300 🌟
https://alypiusloft.etsy.com/listing/1639276204

Here's a new blog entry, taking a look back at 2023. I cover some of my best work from the year, including a few small technical details on certain pieces.

A Look Back at 2023! Here's a look back at some of the work I did in 2023. I won't be covering everything, just the work I consider to be the most important and exciting. A number of these pieces, especially those completed at the end of 2023 and leading into 2024, have been very influential in the work I intend to comp...

Just sent out my latest newsletter! If you're not already subscribed, my newsletter is totally free. I share a bit about my work and my life, and occasionally invite subscribers to consider buying work.

data.fineartstudioonline.com I stepped away from my work on the festal icons to focus on family and attend to the holiday season. I'll be returning to that work at a later date as I need to focus on wrapping up a couple commissions. In the meantime, I want to share a few personal highlights from 2023 and then share my vision fo...

🚧WIP🚧 SAINT OLGA OF ALASKA

Here's my first pass designing an icon of the recently canonized St Olga of Alaska.

The work of simplifying features is extremely difficult when dealing with a saint who's physical features have been recorded with photography. It's easier to take "liberties" w/ the physical features of saints who have only had their spiritual features recorded in paintings.

There is a persisting temptation to render the features in a naturalistic way... Sticking too closely to those physical features than is diserable for iconography. On the other hand, abstracting those features too far results in an image that bears no physical likeness to the saint.

I'm still making adjustments along the way, and there will certainly be more. I've been working on this sketch since St Olga was canonized, and this sketch is the by far the best I've managed.

🚧 WIP 🚧
Ss Michael and Martha
This is one of the more unique family icons I've designed. What's interesting is that both St Michael the Archangel and St Martha are known as dragon slayers.

The particular dragon here is called a Tarasque, and is one of the beasts in the medeivel "Golden Legend". It is said to have originated in Galatia, and was a leviathan and onachus crossbreed. If you're unfamiliar with the onachus, it would kill people by spraying them with caustic f***s. Beautiful picture, right?

The tortoise shell is of special interest. Kinda looks like Bowser from Mario, now that I think of it 😂. In Buddhist symbolism, the tortoise symbolizes the 5 fleshly passions (more or less corresponding to the 7-8 deadly passions in EO & RC tradition). The basic idea is that the passions are weaker than we often suppose. They are difficult to kill because of the hard shell. The beast must be drawn out into the light to be slain, which can only be accomplished through prayer and the acquisitions of the virtues in the power of the Spirit.

But when we begin to draw those sins into the light, we are afflicted by the beast. The beast is full of poison. The claws, the teeth, the breath, the tail... All of them can harm us.

And so we ask for St Michael's intercessions. He has slain dragons before, he can come to our defense so that we may slain our own.

And we ask for St Martha to guard us as well. She destroyed the Tarasque by her chastity. Being a chaste person in our time is rare. Modern media and culture tells us that being chaste is worthy of mockery. A chaste person is a fool in the eyes of the world. It's not cool to be chaste. Yet the power of virginity, in the truest sense of that word, is that it can kill dragons. Thus, we see that St Martha has captured the beast with her belt of chastity, and brought it to St Michael to be destroyed (haven't painted the belt and spear in yet, but St Martha is holding it still while St Michael impales the dragon's head).

M A N O F S O R R O W S
8x8in Egg Tempera
Commissioned Icon

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1. Buying art/ Commissioning an Icon
2. Subscribing to my Newsletter
3. Buying prints

(You can also drop a little tip for me in Venmo if you're not in a place to buy art but still want to help me out.)

Alypius Loft(alypius)'s Favorite Instagram Links - Linktree Iconographer, Fine Artist, & Art Educator specializing in egg tempera painting.

New blog post available. Subscribe to my Newsletter or RSS to stay updated.

Introduction to the Festal Icons The festal liturgical cycle is the means by which Orthodox Christians sanctify time. We celebrate Christ filling all places and redeeming all things through his death and resurrection. The festal cycle follows the life of Christ beginning with the birth of the Theotokos, moving from the Annunciation...

Nearly finished with this icon of St Declán of Ardmore!
I made a digital version a while back and have been able to work on the traditional version for a couple weeks.

Currently available for $1,050 with the code: Alypius

https://www.alypiusloft.com/workszoom/4926773/saint-george #/

I'm making a digital print version of St Declán of Ardmore available. Although this is a finished painting, it is also serving as the preliminary work for the icon that I'll be painting in egg tempera.

Lots of options available through this service, including super nice frames if you would like to have framed in advance.

St Declan of Ardmore Art Print by Alypius Loft Purchase an art print of the digital art "St Declan of Ardmore" by Alypius Loft. Choose from multiple sizes and hundreds of frame and mat options. All prints are professionally printed, packaged, and shipped within 3 - 4 business days.

https://www.threads.net/

www.threads.net

THE GREAT LOVER OF MANKIND
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6x6 AVAILBLE $100
Message if interested in purchasing.

St Matthew the Apostle
Private Collection
Egg Tempera on 5x7 Artefex Tempanel

Acedia I
🚧 WIP 🚧
24x30 egg tempera on wood panel

The Holy Prophet St Elisha receiving the mantle of the Holy Prophet St Elijah.

India Ink & 24k Shell Gold on Pergamenata Vellum

St Onuphrius
India Ink & 24k Shell Gold on 3x3 Vellum
The sketch in the second image is on a sticky note.

St Onuphrius was a naked, ascetic hermit who lived in the wilderness. It is said that he only lived on the words of God, aside from the few veggies he stumbled upon & the miraculous spring and palm tree that God grew near his cave. An Angel brought him the sacrament every Saturday.

St Spyridon
Watercolor & Gouache on Arches Hot Press Paper
$80
Available for sale at the tomorrow morning. First come, first serve.

“Panagia Tree”
Drawing on
Handmade Wax Scratchboard

Enjoyed seeing some excellent work by Andrew Wyeth in Greenville, SC today. His work seems a lot more grey in print than it does in person. His use of cobalt blue in neutral & midtone mixes can be appreciated much more when standing in front of the actual painting. I was also able to have greater appreciation for his use of more vibrant colors than I had expected. Seems like he made strong use of alizarin crimson (perhaps?) in his warm shadow shapes (such as in Tree House, toward the bottom of the painting…but the color is not visible in my photo). To put it another way: Wyeth’s use of color is much more exciting than I had imagined it to be—it’s just very deliberate and used sparingly.

Jesus Christ I
Watercolor on Arches Hot Press Paper
FOR SALE—DM for Inquiry

Until next Saturday (Feb 5), you can use one of the following discount codes in my store!

- use VGH2CL for a 15% discount on my 11x14 print of “Christ Appears to St Paul”

- use HRKB3V to get 20% discount on “Christ Appears to St Paul” when you spend at least $100

PS: I only have 4 of 10 “St Moses the Ethiopian” prints left. I also only have 10 of 50 “Holy Nativity” prints left.

alypiusloft.bigcartel.com

alypius' loft Fine art prints

Help Emanuel get into Fine Art Atelier!, organized by Emanuel Burke Hi, my name is Emanuel, and being an artist is my dream come true! I’ve nev… Emanuel Burke needs your support for Help Emanuel get into Fine Art Atelier!