At the beginning of this year, I started teaching art courses at The Compass Atelier in Rockville, MD. I have been studying at the Atelier in the Master Artists Program under the tutelage of Glen Kessler. It seems a logical next step in my artistic path to start teaching as well.
My focus in these courses is to first build the basic techniques that can work with any medium and style and then working from direct perception, being able to see colors and shapes accurately and learning how to represent these on the canvas. This instruction is balanced with an understanding that there is no fixed way to see reality. Not only do lighting conditions change and subject matter moves, our eyes are constantly adjusting and even our moods can affect what we see. So it is finally up to the artist and his or her imagination to choose what they see. I hope is that these courses build the confidence for artists to make those choices.
In my recent class, Mastering Color, we worked with simple, brightly colored objects to understand how shifts in hue and value can create realistic form.
This spring I am offering three courses. I am continuing my Mastering Color course as well as the Introduction to Painting, and adding Still Life, Landscape, Figure. Click on the links below to find out more about each course and to register:
- Mastering Color Saturdays, April 9–June 1, 10:30 am–1:00 pm
- Still Life, Figure, Landscape Saturdays. April 9–June 1, 1:30 pm–4:00 pm
- Introduction to Oil Painting Thursdays, April 14–June 9, 3:30 pm–6:00 pm