Recently at Atelier Artista

The start of the school year has me incredibly busy. I haven't forgotten about you dear readers of my blog. I have been drawing, painting, cleaning and teaching everyday as well. everyday. No days off, no rest for the wicked. Unless of course the wicked gets sick, which happened last weekend during Thanksgiving so that was my break, in bed then volunteering at the QAS Log drivers Waltz.  Heres a peek into a bit of what I've got going on.

At my last figure sessions I first did a painting I didn't like so I scraped it down, the following week I decided I was better off studying the form through darks and lights rather than sticky colour. Heres a few of the steps in drawing Neema last session on Wednesday night.

My classes are running every day of the week at Atelier Artista (atelierartista.com) Its not too late to join in if you'd like to take the remaining classes until the holidays let me know and come on down.

On Tuesday afternoons I have Colour in Theory and Practice. We finished values, temperature and colour mixing and are now venturing into understanding and using colour harmonies. 

On Wednesdays we do portrait drawing and painting and have begun the first stages of blocking in our self portraits.

Its all about the light and dark and beginning with a good likeness. Next comes colour and form enhancements.

On Thursdays We have classical drawing in the morning and are currently studying some of Bargues method.

In the afternoon on Thursdays, I give a lecture and demo in my "painting secrets of the masters" class.

On Fridays we study Anatomy and more in Full figure.  Ive worked out some theories on how to be both effective and efficient. After this class,  I head on up to Waldorf to teach teens. On the week-ends I have two classes at ACAD and on Sundays I often have samplers at Swintons. 

But wait.......there is more.... there is always more...

so keep your eyes on the prize  =:D

Master Painting final class 7

I am really sad to see this class come to completion. I hope next time its offered it is 10 weeks instead of 7. Below are just a few of the many great works my students worked on. I gave a demo on varnishing and gold guilding and added in some contemporary techniques like making and using stencils.

We went up the the 5th floor ACAD spray booth and put on a coat of Golden Archival UV protection varnish which really brought the colors back out on Anne Marie's study of a Velazquez portrait of the pope.

I demoed adding a semi-translucent burnt umber layer over top the grisaille work on the hair to show what the next step can do to really make colors and further paint application pop!

Here some colour stain has been added to the grisaille master copy and it is already starting to have that wonderful glow that so many masterpieces have.

David's portrait of his mom far exceeded the expectations I had for the class in the time given. All the students who had perfect attendance for the 7 short classes really applied the teachings and process in the course I designed, to great effect. They deserve to be very proud for setting the bar high and for creating such high quality works in my class. Amazing, well done class!

Master class and more . . .

I have a bunch of classes quickly coming to an end this semester and a stack of comissions and new works started in the studio.

I drew up a bunch of skulls and intend on filling them in to varying degrees in order to show the stages of the Venetian and Flemish painting methods.

This skull is copied from a painting titled S. Girolamo Penitente by Bartolomeo Di Giovanni.

 I had a little help in my Life drawing class from "Bucky" (Aka. Alex, according to Menika), who may be the skinniest model I've ever worked with but casts a nice shadow.

We had remembrance day off so I had my painting students still paint and what they brought back definitely impressed. These two pieces of his granddaughter were done with two different methods. Grisaille technique on the left and direct application on the right.

I did a deep and thorough lecture and demo on oil paint mediums, glazes and scumbling at the start of the class and here we can see some of that knowledge being applied to her canvases.

Look at those delicious fruits, they look good enough to eat.

Anne Marie's Velazquez copy is the most sophisticated and developed of all the works I've seen her create so far. Great job in honing her very loose painting style for the purpose of this class. High five!

More mastery in paint

Was in costco and found this treasure for $50. I had hoped eventually I would find a source which had everything I saw while in Italy in one place, lo and behold, here it is, a massive hardcover text in a folio box, a must have for anyone who loves this era of master works, frescos and paintings!

 I huffed many a heavy text book and supply up the hill for my class. I'm too cheap to pay $11 for ACAD parking so I climb the hill wiht all my syuff panting by the time I reach the top.

This is Sues third painting ever and she is starting to see how important the role of values play in her application of acrylic colour. She is one of a few students not using oil in the class.

I am really proud of the students progress in so far. we are just over half way in our 7 week long studies and their pieces are developing wonderfully.

Blocking in the major hues on a painting whose source is a black and white photo.

Hes got his two pieces developing nicely and since he owns a printer at home he has great colour and tonal references that he has promised to give me as a teaching aid for future courses I give. So sweet.

Mixing up some peachy apricot colours in rich creamy oil. She decided to add some other elements to balance out the overall composition.

The granddaughter portraits are coming along. Now begins more fat over lean. We don't have class on remembrance Day next week, but following I will be giving may a recipe for mixes and glazes.

Final blocking in of the portrait with direct application. By nest session the artists should be well on their way to completion of their pieces and begin working in details etc with fatty paint and a thinner brush. I will be giving a glazing and gold leafing demonstration along with notes about the materials they can use as they approach finishing their paintings.

Master Painitng @ ACAD

I am teaching the techniques of the old masters in 7 intense classes. We start with our support and move quickly into a copy and grisaille work by class 3.

I have to bring a lot of supplies and references to the class which means loading in and out and paying way too much for SAIT parking.

 In the first class I teach a few ways to construct and prepare good sturdy supports. If you are going to spend all that time making quality work, you should definitely invest in a quality foundation.

Class 2 we draw and develop the imprimatura stage. The students draft their composition and transfer their images to the support allowing it to dry before continuing on with the next layer.

To do grisaille you need some grey paint, by mixing black you can control its warmth or coolness and then create all the values you need to apply to the canvas.

Making a quick copy of a part of a masters work and experimenting with the flemish or venetian technique helps to understand the process the masters employed in their practice.

ACAD came in a filmed a bit of the class. I thought I snapped more pictures for this blog myself but my gear has been acting up. Luckily his wasn't, so stay tooned, there will be more to come!

Never stop improving your technique

Practice does make perfect. With art you've got to practice, practice and practice some more.

I know I need to put in more quality time to get to where I want to go artistically. I am taking another 3 day workshop with Martinho Correria titled: Studying the figure through the Masters at the Calgary School of Art at Cactus Arts Supply store. Check out their respective website for more info. Its nice to see some familiar faces as well as many new ones for this intensive in classical atelier methods of instruction. I love the private training, you always get pushed beyond the levels and learn so much, making the price worth every penny. I highly recommend these courses and others like them at Swinton's Art Supply etc. if you really want to learn artistic skills and techniques directly form those in the craft every now and again I ma delegated at the opportunity to improve my skills as a student and devote some time to improving my practice.

After the first lecture we worked on tracing gesture type drawings from old masters works to get a feel for the essence of "gesture drawings". It is challenging to remove what you know and previous skills and learn to work a different way. These gesture drawings are meant to be simple ways of conveying the weight and feeling of a model and freezing it into a moment as models tend to move even when posing for a long time. This means you have to learn to capture the feeling behind the figure being drawn.  We traced a myriad of figures done by different artists for reference.

We learned how to properly prepare a pencil and how to hold it for this type of drawing. This one was plastic composite and not wood, I was fooled at first, until I got my exact blade in it, it shaved weird. Then you make a point in the lead with some sandpaper and use smooth wrist and arm movements to create soft and curved S and C curved lines.

We practiced on a small Brague drawing example. First doing a gesture drawing to capture the feeling of the form and then moving into getting the basic shapes and proportions of the figure in place. I took additional notes during the demos to add to the invaluable handouts our instructor Martinho provided.

After a lunch of a delicious "Manwich" at the Holy smoke Grill across the street, I felt groggy with so much meat and bun in my belly. I set up my drawing board on an easel and set up the reference next to the paper another student was kind to offer me to try and work on. This pose is a little intimidating given how much time we had left in the class.

We worked on drawing our figure larger using comparative proportions. I think my guy is a little thick, in places, there is some definite tweaking needed before continuing onto the next stage. But I did manage to get the majority of the figure blocked in in the time given. I look forward to learning more in the next few days, we will see how things develop, I hope this interests you and you come back to check it out.

Ciao for now = :D