FFF class is for students who are engaged with their artwork at a more serious level. Students who feel they are likely to pursue fine art as a career or serious avocation want a more complete and hands-on learning experience. This 3-part class will offer guidance in developing skills needed for realistic/representational drawing of people. The 1st trimester will introduce the skills and techniques of drawing faces/heads. The 2nd trimester will present some of the most unique challenges including hands, feet, hair, fabric folds, body foreshortening and distortion, plus any specific features that students identify as personal challenges. The 3rd and final trimester will address complete bodies, some light anatomy and live model (clothed) figure drawing.

Part 1: Faces — 12 classes, Early Sept. to Early Dec.
Front view, 3/4 view, profile, foreshortened, highlighted, shadowed, with expressions, male, female, you name it...

Part 2: Features — 12 classes, Early Dec. to mid-March
Hands, feet, hair, fabric folds, body foreshortening and distortion, overall integration of faces, figures and features.

Part 3: Figures — 12 classes, Mid-March to late Jun.
Stick-figure, point to point, gestural, anatomy (light), bodies in motion, perspective, proportion, and more...

Mixed Media is a unique class that offers an exploratory experience regarding both materials and techniques. Projects are intended to provide opportunities for students to use a variety of materials and learn or experiment with ways of using them. At the same time students are encouraged to follow their own creative interests regarding subject matter, composition and interpretation.

STUDENTS WILL WORK WITH:
• Printmaking materials and techniques
• Mixed Media

Projects will be assigned with specific learning objectives, and students will typically be able to choose their own subject matter. References and resources will always be available if needed. Projects will frequently require multiple weeks to complete. This is NOT a drawing class and there will be no planned drawing instruction as it is expected that students can already draw well enough to participate.

If you have a student who loves art and has the interest and ability to expand their own creative boundaries they will love Mixed Media.

This class is intended for students who have already taken the Portrait Drawing and/or the Faces, Figures, and Features Classes or have enough experience with portraits that they already know how to use both predictable proportions, and specific measurements to make portraits that are accurate likenesses of their subjects.

Our Portrait Painting class is designed for students who have a desire to spend time focusing exclusively on painting faces. Portraits are an engaging challenge that many people are attracted to.

Students should have a solid working knowledge of concepts including: Line, Light and Shadow, Texture, Perspective and Proportion.

THESE CLASSES WILL PRESENT A SERIES OF PROJECTS, most of them multi-week, designed to teach and guide students through basic processes that are common to many oil paintings.

Every project in this class will be a portrait painting, including front-on, ¾ view, profiles and facial features.

Most paintings will start with an underpainting in one of three traditional methods – Brunaille (Sepia), Grisaille (Gray scale) or the Dead Palette (earth tone primary colors). Color and tone will then be built up in glazes to create lifelike skin tones and textures.

Occasional Alla Prima (one day) paintings will be completed during the trimester.

It’s easy to see why so many people equate oil painting with “fine art.” So many of the master artists we commonly think of worked primarily in oil paint and the iconic masterworks of centuries past tend to be paintings done in oils. It doesn’t take an art conservator to understand why oils have claimed the mantle of popularity among artists. They are remarkably versatile to work with providing artists a broad range of creative options on the canvas. The pigments mix cleanly providing rich colors with clarity and depth. Once cured the medium is stable and capable of enduring many hundreds of years without severe aging effects. The surface can even be cleaned to remove airborne grime and contaminants.

On top of all these benefits, today we even use AP certified, non-toxic, Winsor & Newton water soluble oil paints that allow for easy soap and water clean-up at the end of a day of painting. No more toxic solvents and noxious fumes. Life is good, and oil painting is great!