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"I love the creativity and beauty involved with making art. I love the mixing process, the textures I’m able to create with oil, the beauty of a black and white picture I can create with charcoal."
"I so much appreciate the individual art instruction Graham receives in your program. I love anticipating what his paintings will look like when they are ready to bring home from his class." |
Foundations Course Mediums
 All students begin in Drawing. Younger students focus on developing control in their drawings and typically work with soft pastel, oil pastel, colored pencil and marker. Older students work primarily with graphite and soft pastel, and learn the basics of shading and representing form realistically. As students progress and their understanding improves, they explore these concepts in greater depth. They will continually learn new rendering techniques as image choice becomes more sophisticated.
Subject matter will ultimately lead to instruction in drawing natural textures such as fur, feathers, and foliage. Transparency and reflection are explored as each student studies water and glass. Facial features are introduced through animal study, and become more involved when each student is ready to try portraiture. How far a student progresses through the curriculum before exploring a new medium is dependent on his or her skill level and age. Students revisit and undertake more advanced levels of our drawing curriculum as their skills develop and teachers feel they are ready. Over the course of the entire program, students will have an opportunity to work in graphite, pastel, charcoal, conte crayon and other traditional drawing media.
WATERCOLOR
Watercolor is the student’s first exposure to paint in our program, as well as their first opportunity to work with a brush. Renowned for it’s translucency, watercolor conveys a feeling of light and airiness allowing artists to achieve (among other techniques) luminous, sketch-like effects. We begin with simple exercises that offer students a chance to explore mixing and matching color, and working with the medium. Our students explore a wide variety of technique exercises throughout their time in watercolor and our teachers adapt these exercises based on each student’s project choice and level of proficiency. Students will learn terminology specific to the medium and painting process along the way. As in Drawing, over the course of their program students progress from simple linear subject matter to more complex three-dimensional subject matter and will revisit the medium as teachers feel they are ready. Subject matter choice is designed to offer students a broad exploration of its properties, through which students gain a solid working knowledge of this medium and an understanding of its breadth. |
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Kendall, 8 |
Emerald, 11 |
Phillip, 13 |
Hallie, 15 |
Sean, 17 |
Acrylic offers students an introduction to a painting medium that is incredibly versatile. It can be diluted and used transparently, layered and glazed, used thickly and opaquely. Through working with acrylic and revisiting the medium throughout their program, students learn to achieve an incredible range of effects. Our students begin with an orientation to the medium through a variety of color mixing and matching exercises, as well as an exploration of preliminary techniques. At first, they paint on illustration board, a smooth surface. As their proficiency and control improve, students will work on canvas.
Regardless of level, each project offers the student greater knowledge of the medium and the chance to further develop his or her skills. Under-painting, blending, and glazing, are just a few of the terms and skills students will become familiar with at this level. It is through exploration of this medium that students prepare for their introduction to oil paint.
> Acrylic Gallery
OIL
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Katie, 8 |
Clare, 11 |
Alix, 15 |
Michael, 17 |
Carol, Adult |
It is with Oil that many students feel they have arrived. And indeed they have. All of their experience in color mixing, and the manipulation of paint with a brush will have well prepared them for a smooth and confident transition into what many artists feel is the perfect medium. Their familiarity with a broad range of subjects gives them the confidence to attempt anything they aspire to.
Oil paint offers incredible flexibility. It is very slow drying, and so allows the artist time to work areas of the painting with ease. Oil paint can be applied very thinly, which produces effects through the layering of transparent colors. It can also be applied thickly, overlaying with opaque colors to give a softening effect. Textural surfaces can be created by brushwork or by using a palette knife. Project choice is unlimited in this medium. Its flexibility offers wonderful results whatever the choice. As always, increasingly advanced techniques are introduced as the student progresses and each time the student revisits the medium throughout his or her program.
> Oil Gallery
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