Students begin by drawing a plaster cast in charcoal, developing their ability to render accurate proportions and value relationships. After students finish a charcoal cast drawing, they are introduced to the fundamentals of oil techniques in grisaille, paint handling, and modeling form. Once this has been achieved, students may progress to still-life painting in oil, working on values, color relationships and composition.
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 will work from a live model in order to produce finished drawings and/or paintings. Students will work in pencil, charcoal, pastels or oils. Capturing a likeness is emphasized. Color and techniques in oil and pastel are covered.
Hybrid Class (Students may attend either in-person or via Zoom.)
Explore your imagination! In this class you will be coached through the imaginative art making process used by many artists for personal and professional commission work: idea generation, preparatory work (sketches and value design, reference, and color studies), and on to a final picture. Emphasis is placed on intent, and visual narrative. Christine's teaching is tailored to the needs of each student, be it exploring personal themes or creating work for an illustration portfolio. Assignments can be provided or self-generated by students. Students may choose to work in the medium with which they are comfortable (digital or traditional). The first several classes will include lectures on the imaginative art process, composition, and color. During each class, work will be reviewed through Google Classroom or in-person as needed. Critiques and discussion will be done in a supportive group atmosphere. To use Google Classroom, you will need a Gmail account. This system is for class review of projects only.
The goal of this 10-week course is to sharpen drawing ability and technique. Students will be guided through completing a single drawing from a reproduction in the Charles Bargue Drawing Course. The process will take students from the straight-line block-in to the end stages and subtle finishing. Occasional class exercises will allow students to practice using a variety of tools and techniques. This course is an excellent precursor to sight-size cast drawing and appropriate for all skill levels. Copies will be completed in pencil. Please bring a large 18" x 24" drawing board, HB pencil and kneaded eraser to first class.
Start your child drawing at The Atelier Studio Program of Fine Arts where they will learn methods for seeing and drawing with information our adult students learn! This program, specially designed for children, moves them through steps to learn how to draw realistically, starting with cartoon characters and progressing to more complex illustrations. This course can be continued just as our adult classes, with students working at their own pace to improve their skills. The use of markers, colored pencils, and paint will be introduced as well as working from a still life.
Materials: Please bring a sketchpad (printer paper will do), an HB or 2B drawing pencil, and a rectractable mechanical eraser pencil to each class.
This six-week course will have one model for every two weeks giving students the opportunity to work on studies or alla-prima paintings. Demonstrations by the instructor will show various ways to start a block-in. Topics such as accurate proportions, perspective, values, and capturing a likeness will be addressed. Students can draw or paint. Color and technique in oil will be covered for those who choose to paint. This is appropriate for all skill levels. Beginners can practice, and those who are advanced can create finished alla-prima portraits. This class may be taken by students age 13 and up.
Materials: medium vine charcoal, kneaded eraser, sandpaper block, 11" x 14" charcoal paper, and a drawing board. Painters: we will discuss what is needed, but bring the essentials (Gamsol, paper towels, brushes, palette, etc.) and at the minimum ultramarine blue and a neutral (raw umber, burnt sienna, transparent oxide red or brown). Supplies can be purchased in the school's store.
Clay anatomical overlay (detail) by James Shoop Resin skeleton and clay anatomical overlay
With James Shoop
Using a 21-inch skeletal armature, you will apply clay muscles to match an anatomical cast. Each muscle is applied in the order which is indicated on three lists provided.
List 1: the lower and upper leg. List 2: the torso, upper arm, lower arm and the hand. List 3: the neck and head.
The lists were designed to be used in conjunction with the anatomy book Anatomy for Artists by Eliot Goldfinger.
This class is an excellent study for the artist who is inspired by the human form. Each student will apply clay to the bone-tinted armature to gain a complete understanding of the relationship between muscle and bone. You will also learn important skeleton landmarks as well as the origin and insertions of the muscles and tendons. The finished sculpture will look like the clay muscle image.
Resin skeletal armature provided and included in the price of the class.
Additional materials required: Two 2-pound blocks of Chavant NSP Medium brown clay, $26. Chavant clay can be also be purchased online.
Color I Fall Session: 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.
Color II Winter Session: Deepen your understanding of color and put color theory to practical use. Learn ways to alter chroma, the relative nature of color, color harmony, simultaneous contrast, and more through a combination of presentations, demonstrations, and assignments. Assignments will include color mixing exercises and painting studies from still-life objects and master works. Color I or a basic understanding of hue, value and chroma are strongly recommended. We will be using the Paxton Palette in oil paint.
This class will be focused on one-day oil studies of still lifes in color. The student will begin each class with a quick 20-minute sketch of the still life in paint. The remainder of the day will be focused on color mixing, application, and manipulation of paint on the canvas using brushes or palette knives. Each week will be a new still-life setup in order to study new textures, colors and shapes. Studies, especially done in color paint, are the basis of all finished works. This class attempts to give the student more confidence in applying paint to a surface, relieving the fear of making mistakes in paint by making those mistakes and then correcting them. Only through experimentation with application of paint on the canvas do we learn to create different effects. We will also focus on quick adjustments to value, color, and drawing with differing brushes and mixing color on the palette or directly on the canvas. Some experience in drawing is recommended as much of the class will be in paint application and not perfection of drawing skills. All levels are welcome! This class will not be focused on completing a refined, finished piece but for practice, exploration and fun! This class will use only oil paint and not other mediums. Email Cassandra Ronning at cassandra.ronning@gmail.com for questions and suggested supply list.
Hybrid Class (Students may attend either in-person or via Zoom.)
This class, for beginning and continuing students, covers traditional watercolor methods. Both layering of colors and wet-in-wet techniques are taught with emphasis on composition, value and color mixing. Students learn by doing master copies and then applying those techniques to their own works. Lots of instructor demos and friendly critiquing are part of this class.
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.
In this class we will explore how to portray clothed figures and different materials. Learn about underlying anatomy, characteristics of fabrics and folds, and how to select folds from nature to serve the picture. The costuming will be a little unrefined to show you a budget-friendly way of how to use what's available to then design and create what you want to see in your drawing or painting. Knowing these things can help you draw and paint clothing and costuming that doesn't actually exist.
This 14-week class will be broken into three segments, each with a different costume and pose. In segment one we'll use one class to draw the nude model to familiarize ourselves with essential anatomical landmarks. Then we will work with the same pose but with the model in costume. For the remaining two segments (4 weeks each), we will start immediately with the clothed model. Using the sight-size method, students will develop a minimum of 3 costumed figure studies. Depending on experience, students are welcome to work in pencil, charcoal, or oil paint.
