Personal mentoring: from your first painting to a solo show

1. 1A meeting with the Teacher

   Thirty minutes for $50: we get to know each other, talk about your goals and choose your first module.

2. 2The module

   Four to eight one-to-one online sessions with Elena Illichova and homework between them. You set the pace — within the module’s time limit.

3. 3Between sessions

   Quick checks from a photo and guidance on the painting while you work on it by yourself.

4. 4Module complete

   Your account gains +500 experience and +300 coins, and you receive a certificate for the module.

5. 5Stage complete

   You are awarded a title, from Associate artist up to Master of artistic practice, together with a certificate for the stage.

1. Stage 1

   Foundations of artistic perception

   ✦ Associate artist

   The first modules build sensitivity to form, colour and composition, with a grounding in drawing, sketching and basic anatomy.

   • 1 The start of your path
   • 2 Painting your own pictures
   • 3 The thinking painter

2. Stage 2

   Developing technique and a personal style

   ✦ Experimenting artist

   Signature techniques and an introduction to Blade & Socks, experiments with texture, colour and light and shade, compositional clichés.

   • 4 Working on your own
   • 5 Professional quality

3. Stage 3

   Constructing spatial images

   ✦ Constructor of images

   Constructing geometric solids, perspective, intersecting forms, working with shadow and volume, moving on to complex still lifes and architectural motifs.

   • 8 Architecture in painting
   • 9 Construction and shadow

4. Stage 4

   Expression through metaphor and symbol

   ✦ Conceptual artist

   Working with symbol and metaphor, conceptual still lifes and portraits, developing a visual idea, building artistic stories and connected themes.

   • 6 The wisdom of a canvas
   • 7 Where your ideas come from
   • 10 The human figure

5. Stage 5

   Exhibition and professional practice

   ✦ Master of artistic practice

   The solo exhibition module: presentation, sales, working with collectors, reflecting on your practice; the full cycle from idea to exhibition and preparation for the market.

   • 11 Learning from the Old Masters
   • 12 Your solo exhibition

1. 01 Level 1 · Associate artist

   The start of your path

   4 sessions of 45 minutes

   Complete within 4 weeks

   A plan for your growth, visualising your thinking, your place in art, turning thoughts into images.

   Module programme · 4 blocks

   A plan for your creative growth

   • A deep look into how the student thinks
   • The likely course of your professional steps
   • Awkward questions
   • Homework

   Visualising your thoughts

   • Going through the homework
   • Choosing a Teacher among the Old Masters
   • Finding your colour and tonal preferences
   • Talking about the other arts: theatre, film, books, music
   • Esoteric practices and sport

   The artist's place in art

   • Checking the homework
   • Finding gaps in your knowledge and exercises to close them
   • An individual, intuitive search for the student's directions
   • Which genre makes it easiest to speak to the viewer

   Materialising your thoughts

   • Looking into the stages of the student's life
   • The key landmarks of memory that shape a worldview
   • Quoting the artist's main philosophical ideas in drawing
   • Work on the first group of paintings for a solo exhibition

   Module complete: +500 XP · +300 coins · a module certificate

   $200$50 per session Book a place
2. 02 Level 1 · Associate artist

   Painting your own pictures

   4 sessions of 45 minutes

   Complete within 4 weeks

   Subject and content of your paintings, your studio as a place of power, meeting your teachers from the past.

   Module programme · 4 blocks

   The storyline and content of your paintings

   • Sketches of what you want to tell the viewer
   • Your first triptych
   • The order in which a painting is filled with meaning

   Your studio as a place of power

   • The ideal contents of a creative space
   • A considered layout of the studio furniture
   • A shelf of still-life objects
   • A chest of clothes for sitters
   • Music to work to

   One painting proves nothing

   • Focusing on the main idea of your statement
   • A clear sense of the genre you are meant for
   • A programme for moving from one painting to the next
   • A calendar of your own

   Getting to know your Teachers from the past

   • Choosing the right teacher among the Old Masters
   • Your preferred colour harmonies
   • Notes on your Teacher's main principles
   • Surround yourself with paintings by artists you love
   • A painting of your own by an Old Master's rules
   • Museums

   Module complete: +500 XP · +300 coins · a module certificate

   $200$50 per session Book a place
3. 03 Level 1 · Associate artist

   The thinking painter

   4 sessions of 45 minutes

   Complete within 4 weeks

   Visual thinking, a series of memories, the unusual essence of a thing, the theory of pictorial space.

   Module programme · 4 blocks

   My mind is entirely visual

   • What seems most interesting in your life
   • A thought is a visual image
   • From simple to complex

   A series of the most detailed memories

   • The main emotion of your life is your colour signature
   • One day kept in memory
   • Logical coincidences
   • Dreaming of a future painting

   Exercises in “the unusual essence”

   • The unusual essence of an object or a phenomenon
   • The main character of a painting
   • A short remark or a long conversation
   • Compositional focus

   The theory of pictorial space

   • The underpainting forgives no mistakes
   • Playing with blocks: geometrisation
   • Logic is dull
   • How to use what you have never tried

   Module complete: +500 XP · +300 coins · a module certificate

   $200$50 per session Book a place
4. 04 Level 2 · Experimenting artist

   Working on your own

   4 sessions of 45 minutes

   Complete within 4 weeks

   Allies and rivals, joint shows and forums, working ahead of schedule, taking a hit and carrying on.

   Module programme · 4 blocks

   Finding allies and rivals

   • Where artists gather
   • Understanding and rejection
   • Acting together

   Taking part in joint exhibitions and forums

   • Planning group exhibitions
   • Defining the concept
   • How to get ahead of other artists
   • How to win the viewer's interest

   Working ahead: the body of paintings you need

   • The intellectual direction of your paintings within a group show
   • The philosophical dimension
   • Preparing to paint
   • Creating a beautiful work of art

   Taking a hit and carrying on

   • Friendships with art historians, gallerists and critics
   • Building the public presence of your name: catalogue, biography, website, video blog
   • Strengthening emotional intelligence
   • Learning from mistakes

   Module complete: +500 XP · +300 coins · a module certificate

   $200$50 per session Book a place
5. 05 Level 2 · Experimenting artist

   Professional quality

   4 sessions of 45 minutes

   Complete within 4 weeks

   Compositional clichés, emotion and tension, a sense of measure, combining compositional ideas.

   Module programme · 4 blocks

   Compositional clichés

   • The viewer follows your thought
   • Tonal and colour relationships
   • A simple compositional move

   Emotion creates tension between different charges

   • Storyboarding the intended subject
   • Provocative moves
   • The root meaning of an image
   • Expression as an eloquent statement

   A sense of measure

   • Metaphor: a vivid comparison of one thing with another
   • Alliteration: rhyme and repetition
   • Tautology: saying the same thing twice
   • Ellipsis: leaving logical links unsaid
   • Metonymy: substituting one notion for another

   Combining compositional ideas

   • A common feature for a series of paintings
   • Vertical, horizontal, square, circle
   • Dramatising the compositional structure
   • Scale as the dominant movement

   Module complete: +500 XP · +300 coins · a module certificate

   $200$50 per session Book a place
6. 06 Level 4 · Conceptual artist

   The wisdom of a canvas

   4 sessions of 60 minutes

   Complete within 4 weeks

   Moving into an unpredictable future, the metamorphosis of forms, signs and composition, the key rules.

   Module programme · 4 blocks

   Moving from the past into an unpredictable future

   • The diagonal as the passage of time
   • Entering and leaving the painting
   • Informativeness

   The metamorphosis of forms

   • Developing images with kindred plastic form
   • Where the figure sits on the sheet
   • Fragmentation
   • Aesthetics: signs of ethnic culture

   A series of signs builds a composition

   • Illusory space
   • Variations on a subject
   • A reason to paint
   • Visual memory
   • Imagination

   The key rules of composition

   • Seeing the situation as a whole
   • Typification
   • Contrasts of colour, line and scale
   • Every device serving one common aim

   Module complete: +500 XP · +300 coins · a module certificate

   $250$62.50 per session Book a place
7. 07 Level 4 · Conceptual artist

   Where your ideas come from

   4 paintings · 5 sessions of 60 minutes

   Complete within 4 weeks

   Four paintings in four weeks: visualising ideas, promoting the student, an author's art project, the concept of a show.

   After the first four modules, for those aiming to become a personal student of Elena Illichova.

   Module programme · 5 blocks

   Four paintings in four weeks. This module gives you the knowledge to paint four pictures in a month, boldly and correctly: in constant contact with your teacher, you will realise your wish for a small professional statement of four paintings on any philosophical theme close to you. This steady work on a group of paintings can become part of a solo exhibition or the preparation for one.

   Visualising your thoughts

   • Question and answer
   • Intuitive visualisation
   • Key statements
   • Studies, sketches, drafts
   • Organising the material
   • The first painting

   Moving the student forward

   • The teacher's prompts
   • An overall plan of action
   • Help from the Old Masters
   • Variants in drawing
   • The second painting: a detailed description

   Concentrating the thought

   • Learning from mistakes
   • The viewer's interest
   • A photo display
   • Underpaintings as companions to the main works
   • Developing your colour preferences
   • The third painting: confident steps in the right direction

   Your own art project

   • Refining and finishing the paintings
   • Ways to exhibit
   • The artist's “kitchen”
   • Titles for the paintings
   • The art project statement
   • The fourth painting: where it may lead next

   Discussing the overall concept of the exhibition

   • Finishing the fourth painting
   • Completing the paintings in their interior setting
   • Installation at the exhibition
   • The art project catalogue
   • The art historian

   The most intensive module: you may call your teacher for an hour a week by video, with the teacher's drawn explanations.

   Module complete: +500 XP · +300 coins · a module certificate

   $350$70 per session Book a place
8. 08 Level 3 · Constructor of images

   Architecture in painting

   3 paintings · 4 sessions of 60 minutes

   Complete within 4 weeks

   Three paintings in four weeks: your relation to architecture, historical layers, the symbol of architecture, geography.

   Module programme · 4 blocks

   Your relationship with architecture

   • Where have you lived?
   • Memories of travels
   • Seeing yourself inside and outside a building
   • Making the weight of stone tangible
   • A master class with Vladimir Illichov

   Long stories

   • The historical layer
   • Architectural style
   • Leaving things unsaid in painting
   • The buildings a landscape needs in its perspective
   • Still life with architecture

   The symbol of architecture

   • Entering the architect's thinking
   • Accompanying human figures
   • The architect's sources of inspiration
   • Personal photographs
   • An architectural symbol of your own

   Geography

   • How much of the painting architecture takes up
   • The main emotional message
   • Drawing within painting
   • Sunlight and the philosophy of the planetary
   • Completing a triptych of your own

   Module complete: +500 XP · +300 coins · a module certificate

   $450$112.50 per session Book a place
9. 09 Level 3 · Constructor of images

   Construction and shadow

   4 sessions of 60 minutes

   Complete within 4 weeks

   Constructive thinking, projections, the theory of cast shadows, light on the tip of the brush.

   Module programme · 4 blocks

   This module is essential for anyone who wants to work on the picture plane professionally: the viewer's attention will be drawn to constructed volume, stability and the way forms and phenomena intersect. Without this simple but vital knowledge, your paintings cannot grow more complex or ambitious.

   Developing constructive thinking

   • The variety of geometric solids
   • Light and shade on geometric solids
   • Arranging a group of solids
   • Compositional schemes

   Intersecting geometric solids

   • Constructing projections of solids
   • Sections by planes
   • How do solids interact with one another?
   • Mountains: a portrait of the planet

   The theory of cast shadows

   • The shadow of a single object
   • A group of objects, one shared shadow
   • What a shadow cast from one object onto another looks like
   • A patch of sunlight on the wall and floor
   • The light source on the tip of the brush

   Applying the knowledge to the human figure

   • Breaking the human body into simple geometric forms
   • Linking ovals one after another
   • Cast shadows and form shadows
   • Geometric stylisation for the overall expressiveness of the figure
   • Overlapping figures in motion

   Module complete: +500 XP · +300 coins · a module certificate

   $350$87.50 per session Book a place
10. 10 Level 4 · Conceptual artist

    The human figure

    3 paintings · 4 sessions of 60 minutes

    Complete within 4 weeks

    Meeting the human image, the main character, portrait as the hardest form, the painting you dream of.

    After four mentoring modules.

    Module programme · 4 blocks

    In this module you learn to bring people onto the painted surface of your work. Self-portraits will become easy, simple and enjoyable, and sketching living people from life will turn into a favourite pastime. Together we will paint three pictures.

    Taught by: Elena and Vladimir Illichov

    Meeting the human image

    • The spirituality of a portrait
    • A person's character and how to show it
    • Drawing a person from life is the surest way

    Homework: Sketches from life: the human skull, the skeleton, the écorché; detailed drawings after Leonardo da Vinci.

    The main character of your painting

    • The storyline of the work
    • Placing the figure in the composition
    • Knowing everything about the painting's characters
    • Just enough surroundings

    Homework: Stories, essays, scribbled scene notes; a selection of your own drawings; expressive drawing from life; Old Master drawings with notes on their subjects.

    Portraiture, the hardest of the visual arts

    • Getting to know your own image
    • Confession through detailed visualisation
    • How much light, how much shadow
    • Watching unusual people
    • Mutual understanding with the sitter

    Homework: Self-portrait drawings in contrasting light: full face, profile, three-quarter view; a painted portrait sketch; stylised versions of yourself, choosing headwear.

    The painting you dream of

    • How many people the painting holds
    • Matching costume to subject
    • Stage design and mise-en-scène
    • Worthy themes from history

    Homework: Preparing to draw from life; figures intertwined in motion; looking for costumes; drawings of groups of people with shared shadows.

    Module complete: +500 XP · +300 coins · a module certificate

    $450$112.50 per session Book a place
11. 11 Level 5 · Master of artistic practice

    Learning from the Old Masters

    3 paintings · 4 sessions of 60 minutes

    Complete within 4 weeks

    The secret knowledge of the Old Masters, painting and drawing interwoven, their manner, their kitchen.

    After ten mentoring modules.

    Module programme · 4 blocks

    In this module you gain invaluable knowledge of the Old Masters' laws and learn to apply them in paintings free of mistakes. By the end you will have painted three works of your own and made many drawings in different techniques.

    Taught by: Elena and Vladimir Illichov

    The secret knowledge of the Old Masters

    • Your preferences in choosing teachers
    • The skills you want to gain
    • Finding your principal teacher
    • Studying the Old Master's life and work

    Homework: Write out the Old Master's rules; a copy drawing; an iconostasis.

    Painting and drawing interwoven

    • Choosing the Old Master's sketches
    • Moving from drawing to images in colour
    • Drawing with the brush
    • Painterly drawing

    Homework: A copy of an Old Master drawing set into your own still life; an anatomical drawing in a mount.

    The painterly manners of the Old Masters

    • Particular rules of painting
    • Laws of colour and tone
    • Whose studio would you like to enter?
    • The colour square

    Homework: A drawing of the compositional scheme of a favourite painting; a colour breakdown of a painted work; a painting of your own by an Old Master's rules.

    The Old Master's “kitchen”

    • The original sources of mastery
    • Rivalry and competition
    • Collecting props and attributes
    • A painting for the ages

    Homework: A self-portrait by the Old Master's laws.

    Module complete: +500 XP · +300 coins · a module certificate

    $500$125 per session Book a place
12. 12 Level 5 · Master of artistic practice

    Your solo exhibition

    7 paintings · 8 sessions of 60 minutes

    Complete within 8 weeks

    Seven paintings: visualising them, painting them, hanging and running the show, selling the work.

    Personal students only, after six mentoring modules.

    Module programme · 3 blocks

    A solo exhibition is a valuable step towards fulfilling yourself as an artist: under your Teacher's guidance you will learn to conceive, paint and present your finest work. You will step out of your comfort zone and, trusting your own strength, create seven of your most beautiful paintings.

    Visualising the paintings to come

    • Training the sketching process
    • Forming compositional signatures
    • A story told in a drawing
    • Symbolic weight
    • A patchwork of drawings on A1 board

    Painting the seven works

    • The core concept of the exhibition
    • A short preface
    • The main idea in the main painting
    • All in service of each
    • Crossing out realism

    Hanging and running the exhibition

    • The interior space
    • Opening night, presentation, performance, installation
    • Selling the paintings
    • Reaping the laurels!

    Eight 60-minute sessions over two months. After six mentoring modules, or for personal students.

    Module complete: +500 XP · +300 coins · a module certificate

    $900$112.50 per session Book a place

• A meeting with the teacher

  30 min

  A talk with Elena Illichova when inspiration is gone and the way forward is unclear: what blocks the work, answers to concrete questions and a plan for the next steps.

  $50 Book
• Rapid painting check

  by photo and message

  For personal students: stuck mid-painting — send a photo and get the master’s answer. Three questions about one painting.

  $25 $30 Book
• Building the underpainting

  60 min

  One session up to 60 minutes: with Elena Illichova you choose the palette and lay the Blade & Socks underpainting — the foundation of the picture.

  $100 $150 Book
• Oil self-portrait with the master

  180 min

  Three hours at the window in front of a mirror: 50×40 canvas, Blade & Socks, step by step with Elena. The online course “Skull and hand” comes as a gift.

  $350 Book
• Graphic self-portrait “My inner light”

  120 min

  Two hours in front of a large mirror: quick self-portraits in liner and sepia with a text beside the drawing. You learn to show inner light, not just likeness.

  $300 Book
• Painting escort

  by photo and message

  Painting without mistakes under the teachers’ guidance: planning, corrections along the way, finishing — overall light, title and signature.

  $200 $220 Book

You pick a time from the masters’ free slots in your account. Payment follows the confirmed time.

1. 1Constructive thinking and a compositional approach

   Such a student builds harmonious compositions, uses geometric forms with confidence and finds balanced visual solutions, keeping chaos out of the work.

2. 2Command of light, shade and volume

   Through an in-depth study of light and shade, cast shadows and form shadows, the student renders the volume of faces, objects and whole scenes clearly, making images more convincing and emotionally rich.

3. 3A personal hand and originality

   Having gone through the whole mentoring programme, the student develops a style of their own. Using signature techniques such as Blade & Socks, they create work that stands out from the conventional.

4. 4The ability to turn an idea into a painting

   The student can travel from an idea, through sketches and plans, to the finished work: they think through the theme, symbolism, subject and visual metaphors on their own and bring them to life.

5. 5Ready for professional and exhibition work

   Ten modules give a solid foundation: the skills to prepare a solo exhibition, hang a show, present your paintings and work with connoisseurs and potential buyers. The student is ready to practise at a professional level.