Students begin by drawing a plaster cast or still life in charcoal, developing their ability to render accurate proportions and value relationships. As students progress, they are introduced to the fundamentals of oil and/or pastel techniques, composition and color.

Life drawing is at the core of any serious program of fine arts. In these classes, students draw from the figure in pencil, charcoal, including an option of painting. Each drawing or painting is created over a period of sessions, developing the student’s eye for accurate gesture, proportions, and anatomy. With a single sustained pose, students will have the option of either taking one drawing/painting to a high degree of finish or completing several drawings from different positions around the model.

One-day figure studies

Students will paint a new study each week working from the figure. Working from a new pose each week will give students many opportunities to study gesture, anatomy, proportion, value and color! Instructors will guide the student to achieve a complete figure, starting by drawing and progressing to blocking in with paint while striving for accuracy in proportion. All students will begin in black-and-white value for the first two classes progressing to color based on skill level and student preference. Throughout the class topics to be discussed will include value structure/form, some anatomy, color mixing/ relativity, and understanding temperature. Different exercises will be presented throughout the class to focus on these topics.

Life drawing is at the core of any serious program of fine arts. In these classes, students draw from the figure in pencil, charcoal, including an option of painting. Each drawing or painting is created over a period of sessions, developing the student’s eye for accurate gesture, proportions, and anatomy. With a single sustained pose, students will have the option of either taking one drawing/painting to a high degree of finish or completing several drawings from different positions around the model.

Students begin by drawing a plaster cast or still life in charcoal, developing their ability to render accurate proportions and value relationships. As students progress, they are introduced to the fundamentals of oil and/or pastel techniques, composition and color.

Life drawing is at the core of any serious program of fine arts. In these classes, students draw from the figure in pencil, charcoal, including an option of painting. Each drawing or painting is created over a period of sessions, developing the student’s eye for accurate gesture, proportions, and anatomy. With a single sustained pose, students will have the option of either taking one drawing/painting to a high degree of finish or completing several drawings from different positions around the model.

Are you confused by color? Do you work hard to mix a color only to get a color you didn’t want? My goal is to teach you how to make color mixing less frustrating and help you gain confidence in color mixing. Bring questions and a curious mind. Using the colors of The Atelier’s Paxton Palette, students will create color boards (based on the color boards shown in “Alla Prima” by Richard Schmid), as well as some free-form color exploration. Through these projects students will explore color and practice ways to think about what we see when mixing colors. Topics include mixing analogous colors, complements, the color wheel, color space, gamut, the attributes of color (hue, value, chroma), temperature, color bias, why a 50/50 mix does not make a middle color, mixing “mud”, and more. Each class is mostly work time, part presentation and discussion. Most students find they need additional time outside of class to complete the boards. We will work in oil paint. 

Students begin by drawing a plaster cast or still life in charcoal, developing their ability to render accurate proportions and value relationships. As students progress, they are introduced to the fundamentals of oil and/or pastel techniques, composition and color.