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.
This nine-week evening class is designed for slightly advanced artists interested in sustained portrait study. Students will work from a live model, focusing on comparative drawing to strengthen proportion, structure, and likeness.
Participants will develop one drawing or painting over the full nine weeks, working with the same model throughout the session. Emphasis is placed on careful observation, disciplined studio practice, and individual growth.
Hybrid Class (Students may attend in-person or via Zoom.)
In this class Christine will coach you through the imaginative art-making process she and many other professional artists use for imaginative art. You will build skills, confidence, and further develop your unique creative abilities, therefore we avoid generative AI programs.
In Level 1, the first four classes start with lectures on brainstorming, composition, value, color design and more, followed by feedback on student projects (which can be assigned by the teacher if needed). The remaining classes start with a sketch warmup, followed by project feedback. You may work using traditional or digital media (Photoshop, Procreate, or similar). During class, critiques and discussion are done in a supportive group atmosphere. Students work on their projects between classes. We use Google Classroom to share information and review projects (Gmail account required). Classes are not recorded. Email Christine with questions or concerns: christine.mitzuk@theatelier.org.
Imaginative Art and Illustration 2: A modified version of the class will be offered in the spring and summer sessions. The full lectures will not be included in those sessions. The goal of this class is similar to Illustration 1 in that we will work to build confidence in and further develop your unique personal creative abilities and skills, therefore students will not use generative AI programs.
The goal of this 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 for children ages 9-18:
2H pencil
Pencil sharpener
White eraser
Any sketch pad
Strathmore 400-series mixed-media pad (brown cover), 9" x 12"
Optional: Students who would like to paint can bring a watercolor set and a couple of watercolor brushes in two different sizes. (A Prang Oval 8 set and synthetic rounds #4 and 1/2” would suffice.)
Materials for children ages 7-10:
2B pencil
Pencil sharpener
Pink Pearl eraser
Any sketch pad
Strathmore 400-series mixed-media pad (brown cover), 11" x 14"
Set of acrylic paints with at least a red, yellow, and blue
A couple of acrylic paint brushes in two different sizes
If there are any questions, please ask instructor any Saturday.
9- and 10-year-olds can be in either class. Child has to be 9 to be in the 2-hour class.
Additional Information for Parents:
There are no exceptions on age limits.
It is warm in our studio, so please have your child dress to be comfortable.
Have your kids bring a water bottle and a small snack.
Just like a museum, The Atelier has artistic nude paintings on display.
Maui Plantation House, watercolor by Louise Gillis
Beginning students will have a tutorial on watercolor: mixing colors, drawing, values and composition. Continuing students will have individual choices of subject matter of painting and drawing to advance their watercolor techniques. Supply list emailed upon registration. This class is for all levels.
The greatest challenge for the student to overcome is accurately capturing the likeness of an individual's face. The second greatest challenge is getting somebody to sit long enough for you to try it out! In this class, both challenges will be addressed head-on. Students will have 2 1/2 hours to complete a portrait study from a live model. While overwhelming at first, even beginning students will find that soon, they are able to work at an effective pace. Students can expect daily demonstrations, presentation of fundamental concepts, and support from the instructor on their own studies. Students will be invited to work in pencil, charcoal, or oil paints, depending on their skill level.
In this 9-week course, you will complete one or multiple paintings using a photo reference of your choice. We will discuss how to use classical painting techniques and principles to produce quality results in situations when working from life is not possible. Topics will include: selecting reference material, composition, paint handling, color, as well as any questions that you bring to the class! We will also outline strategies for finishing paintings within an established time frame, including the option for faster one- or two-day projects. Students will bring their own painting supplies in oil, acrylic, or gauche, as well as a quality printed reference photo. All experience levels are welcome!
In this class we will explore how to portray clothed figures and different materials, combined with a little imagination. Learn about underlying anatomy and how it affects folds, characteristics of fabrics and folds, and ways to use your artistic license to edit what you observe to serve your picture. These are useful things to consider when you need to invent or recreate the look of a costume for a picture. Students are encouraged to explore their imaginations and creativity to embellish their studies with imagined details or a scene.
This 9-week class will be broken into two segments, each with a different costume and pose. Using a combination of sight-size and comparative methods, students will develop a minimum of two costumed figure studies. Depending on experience, students are welcome to work in pencil, charcoal, or oil paint.
The most crucial part of any artwork is its preliminary stages. In this class, Sawyer will emphasize the most necessary of these stages: the block-in. The goal for this class will be describing the figure as efficiently—and accurately—as possible. Through a series of demonstrations, explanations, optional assignments, and primarily model time, students will be eased into complex topics. Composition, proportions, shape design, structure, and notan statements will be discussed and practiced in an approachable manner. There will be no intimidating rendering. This is the meat and potatoes of drawing!
Materials:
a small drawing board
medium sized binder clips
HB pencils (yellow school pencils work fine)
a pencil sharpener, or blade, and sanding board
kneaded eraser
legal-sized bond paper (8.5 x 14 inches) not letter-sized
This class was designed with your learning in mind. We will talk about all things figure drawing! Students will use graphite pencils to draw the figure. Lecture and demos will accompany drawing time to give the student a strong foundation from which to work. The class information will build systematically. For the first few classes, students will work from a new pose each night with emphasis on accurate proportion and a strong start. Poses will progressively lengthen from 1-4 nights as students learn to render the figure with a step-by-step approach. Topics covered will include gesture, anatomical bone structure, accurate shapes, perspective, and using light and shadow to render form.
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.
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 how we see color, color wheels, 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.
Want to work on your still-life skills? Would you like to learn to paint quickly and focus on problem solving? This class will focus on teaching you how to complete a small still life in three sessions.
In this 10-week class we will use a structured approach to create small paintings in oil. We will spend three days per painting. Subject matter will be set up by the instructor and will be a range of objects including fruit, vegetables, metal, bone, crockery, fabric and other objects.
The approach will be working quickly and efficiently. Day one will start students drawing in paint and a color-value block-in. Day two we will refine our drawing and colors. Day three will be finishing. We plan on completing three still lifes in this fashion.
It is suggested to have some experience in drawing and/or painting. If you have questions about your experience level please reach out to the instructor Cassandra Ronning at cassandra.ronning@gmail.com to discuss.
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.
Breathe life into your figure drawings and gain a deeper understanding of gesture. Christine will coach you through a variety of exercises exploring different ways to see, understand, and capture gesture. Through gesture we can bring a sense of life into our drawings, evoke emotion, tell a story through body language. We will be studying gesture from the nude figure. This class blends The Atelier and Studio Arts figure study methods. Throughout the course, there will be a variety of models and pose lengths. Experimentation of materials will be discussed and encouraged.
Learn practical, essential digital skills for traditional and digital art making. We will not use any generative AI programs. In this class Christine will teach you essential skills she uses for her digital and traditional art making. You will learn the important difference between color modes for art made for print and screen, dimensions and resolution, “frankensteining” your reference, how to use a pencil drawing for digital painting, digitally alter a drawing to explore composition, how to enlarge and prep a pencil drawing to use to transfer for a painting, digital brushes, and more. About a week before the class, registrants will receive access to download the class files.
We will use Adobe Photoshop (the Photography plan should be sufficient. Be sure you understand their billing and cancellation terms) and AffinityPhoto (which is free through Canva).
Some technical assistance will be available. The class does not include any software or hardware.
Requirements:
some drawing experience
must be familiar with navigating and using your device
must have your own laptop that can handle Photoshop (an iPad or similar may be used but please note, only assistance with Photoshop or AffinityPhoto will be available, not device tech help. Christine does not use iPad.)
have a touchscreen laptop with a pen OR laptop with an external pressure sensitive tablet with pen like a Wacom Intuos or Intuos Pro. A mouse is NOT recommended.
be able to connect to the internet using The Atelier's Wi-Fi
Christine Mitzuk has been using Photoshop since the mid 90s, first as a student at the U of MN, then through her graphic design career. She continues to use it as a professional artist and illustrator as part of her traditional painting process and for digital paintings.
