Icon Workshops 2025
led by Dom Alex Echeandía Loro
Stay in our new Guesthouse
Beginners Icon Workshop
Monday 04 - Saturday 09 August 2025
Cost £400
The subject of this workshop is the Mandylion. (See image below). The Mandylion, meaning 'small cloth' or 'towel' is similar to Veronica's veil and believed to have touched the face of Christ, retaining his features on the cloth. [No gold leaf is used on the beginner's workshop.]
Intermediate Icon Workshop
Monday 11 - Saturday 16 August 2025
Cost: £ 430
The subject of this workshop is St Joseph and the Child Jesus. Students on the intermediate workshop should have previously attended the beginners icon course. This workshop includes practicing the technique of applying gold to the halos.
Advanced Icon Workshop
Monday 18 - Saturday 23 August 2025
Cost: £ 450
The subject of this workshop is the Baptism of Jesus. Students are required to have attended the intermediate workshop from this or previous years, to have a basic understanding of the techniques that Fr Alex will be using.
The maximum number of students per course is 14
Our Icon Workshops
We offer a series of six-day workshop, offering an opportunity to learn and practice the art of writing icons, in the contemplative calm of a Benedictine monastery, exploring the techniques and understanding of iconography. Each day will begin with a demonstration of the techniques to be used and the day is spent painting, with support and accompaniment from Dom Alex. The designs will be applied to the board, and the colour layers built up to complete the icon.
Cost
The cost for the teaching is indicated for each workshop, with a non-refundable deposit payable when booking. The price includes a prepared gessoed icon board. pigments, and gold leaf as indicated (intermediate and advanced levels)
Accommodation
We are pleased to make our new accommodation available for this workshop.
The cost is £70 per night for an ensuite room, including continental breakfast. The cost of full-board is £95.
The cost of meals for residents and non-residents are: lunch (two courses and coffee) £16; supper £12.
Tea and Coffee will be provided for all.
Book now for our upcoming workshops
Icons Workshops at Belmont
We are happy to run regular Icon Workshops at Belmont run by the Peruvian Iconographer, Dom Alex Echeandía, who is a monk of Belmont and prior of our foundation outside Lima.
These Workshops offer the chance to learn and practice the art of writing icons in the contemplative calm of a Benedictine monastery.
Normally each year there are courses for Beginners and Intermediates. Each day Dom Alex will demonstrate techniques, then offer support and accompaniment in painting. The designs applied to the board will be built up with colour layers to complete the icon.
Dom Alex Echeandia is an Iconographer, trained in the UK and Ukraine. He studied theology at Blackfriars, Oxford. He is currently Prior of the Monastery of the Incarnation of at Lurin. Recent commissions include an icon of St Cuthbert for Buckfast Abbey, and he featured on the BBC4 Programme 'The Monastery' where he prepared an icon of St Michael. He leads workshops and retreats in Britain and Peru.
Profile: Dom Alex Echeandía
Since 1999 I have been a Benedictine Monk of the Monastery of the Incarnation in Lima, Peru. It is the daughter House of Belmont Abbey, Hereford, UK, where I have lived for the last five years, while I read Theology at Blackfriars, Oxford until June 2014. I was ordained deacon in December 2012 at the abbey and I was ordained priest in Peru on 18th October 2014.
I began training as an iconographer in Guatapé, Medellin, Colombia, where I spent six months of my initial formation as a monk in 2002. Then, back in Peru I continued my formation as monk and iconographer.
I went to the UK in 2005 and 2006 for courses in Iconography under Sister Petra Clare and Aidan Hart in Scotland and England, respectively.
Icon Making on the BBC

Then, I joined the Icon and Wall-Painting Course run by the Prince´s School of Traditional Art, led by Aidan Hart, to improve and develop my understanding of icons, especially of frescoes. I am a member of the British Association of Iconographers.
In July 2013 I went to Ukraine to learn a new technique, a combination of the softness of the Russian tradition and the bold strokes of the Greek. I now make use of both techniques to express the development of culture and theology that they represent.
As a Benedictine Monk, the Liturgy of the Hours and the Sacraments define and direct my life in an endless cycle of Ora et Labora (RB 48). Writing icons has come to symbolize this way of life for me. It is a combination of monastic life and iconography that defines me as a Christian.
At the moment I am working on icons for commissions in the UK as well as in Peru. I have had a lifelong love for iconography, and have worked full time as a professional iconographer since 2006. It is with thanksgiving to God and gratitude to my instructors, monastic community, friends and benefactors that I am able to share with you the spirit of iconography as part of God´s continuing expression of love for His people.
Gallery of Icons by Dom Alex
