The Academic Approach Archives - Classical Atelier @home

Plaster Casts for Cast Drawing available again

When I started my online activities in the field of classical art, I offered my own Plaster Casts for Cast Drawing at a reasonable price at www.cast-drawing.com, as the market only offered expensive goods from real sculptors. People were happy to accept my Plaster Casts, because it was exactly what they needed to learn drawing from plaster casts. Nothing special and in any case not expensive. After all, it was meant to serve as a reference once or maybe twice and not as a decorative … Read more

All about the Academic Cast Drawing – The best resources

Cast Drawing is an excellent exercise for painting realistically. It teaches you to see form in three dimensions and transfer it to a two dimensional surface – the drawing paper. Cast Drawing is the following step in learning classical art after having practised the Bargue Drawings. Below is a collection of the most valuable resources in the internet on Cast Drawing. So make sure to read the whole article plus all linked sources. The materials you’ll need Cast Drawings are usually done in charcoal for … Read more

The best free resources on learning classical art at home!

The internet offers everything you need to learn classical painting for free – at least that’s my claim. What is taught in the classical painting schools is now passed on free of charge on the Internet by the former students. The painting schools live from the income of the tuition fees and the former students live from the advertising income through the publication of their free resources. The pressure or compulsion to attract more and more attention in order to stand out from the competition … Read more

“Return to Florence” – a documentary on Cecil Studios in Florence, Italy

Life as a classical art student in Florence, Italy I always dreamt of having the money to go to Florence and learn classical art at an academy – if it’s the Angel Academy, Florence Academy or Cecil Studios. The documentary “Return to Florence” wasn’t really helpful in relieving this desire. I saw an ad on this documentary on the Art Renewal website and asked my girlfriend if she is still looking for a birthday present for me. So then I got the DVD for birthday. It is no … Read more

Let others pay for your education

Crowdfund your classical art training and give something in return As you know classical art training at an academy is expensive but what if your desire to attend an academy is so strong that you don’t want to learn it on your own at home? Aspiring artists Eliza Moser and Arthur Haywood started their own crowdfunding projects at Kickstarter.com to make their dream come true. While Eliza aimed to go to the Florence Academy of Art Arthur crowdfunded for the Grand Central Atelier. Each of … Read more

How to sculpt your own Écorché anatomy figure

Ecor… what? Écorché! The classical ateliers also offer – besides drawing and painting classes – sculpting classes where you are taught anatomy either with an écorché figure or a nude figure (see here their Facebook photos with lots of sculpures!). Écorché simply means flaying/skinning. An écorché figure is a sculpture where the bones and muscles are visible. Here I’ve already talked about some anatomy learning apps for your smart device. Drawings and paintings are two dimensional representations of a three dimensional reference. Beeing able to make this transfer … Read more

Video: Cast drawing ‘Ear’

I’ve made a Cast Drawing video. It’s a drawing of the EAR plaster cast that I am offering in my shop and which is currently the best selling product of them (besides the skull). You can also see this ear in a drawing by Heather – I wrote about it here. For this drawing I used a regular fine 185g/m² drawing paper from a drawing pad and 3 pencils H, HB & 2B and it took me about 8 hours. The editing of this Cast … Read more

Mannequins as nude models

Learning human anatomy is an important part of the study in classical art. Drawing a nude model not only teaches you skills in patient rendering but also anatomy. In the Academy you work on one single nude drawing for up to 6 weeks with a total of ~50-60 hours ending up super realistic. See here a 6 week charcoal drawing of a male nude by Dorian Iten done at the Angel Academy of Art. If you scroll down the page he is posting a step-by-step (click here … Read more

Artist William Whitaker (1943-2018)

Having a mentor can be a great benefit for your artistic skills. Since I started to be interested in oil painting about 15 years ago I’ve had two people I would consider as mentors to whom I had contact and from whom I could learn from – artists Lienhard Pallast and Michael Milosevic. For many young artists in the online community William Whitaker was kind of a mentor. He was always generous with his knowledge and encouragement. I myself also regarded him as a kind … Read more

I am not alone

In July I posted a list of blogs of professional artists and art schools which I find useful and informative for those learning classical art at home. But there are also blogs in the internet by other self teaching people just like me. For example this is Heather’s blog and I must say she is doing verrrry well. Though she started to blog in August 2012 she took the structured atelier way in October 2012 with a Bargue drawing. When I found her blog I … Read more

Practising nude drawing – The ultimate guide

Learning human anatomy is an important part of the study in classical art. Drawing a nude model not only teaches you skills in patient rendering but also anatomy. In the Academy you work on one single drawing for up to 6 weeks with a total of ~50-60 hours ending up super realistic (see some examples here, here and here). If a nude model gets paid $15/hour, that makes $750-950 for a complete drawing. Too much to hire a model on your own so attending a nude drawing class is … Read more

Advices from a professional artist

In 2006 I was happy to find an artist near where I live who has attended a classical atelier in Florence. Born in Jugoslavia, artist Michael Milosevic, who lived in Canada for a long period of time and then moved to Florence to study at the Angel Academy of Art now lives in Bad Homburg which is about 30 kilometers away from Frankfurt where I live. In 2010 I worked on a still life at his studio under his guidance: Recently I visited him again … Read more

Squint your eyes!

Squinting helps us to seperate the lights from the darks and allows us to see larger relationships. You’ll need that for judging composition, values and shapes. If you want to judge the value of a given color you’ll sometimes have a hard time doing so because color distracts us from the value. But when you squint your eyes, the color will fade just enough to be able to judge the value. Values at both ends of the value scale – white and black – and … Read more

Free Alla Prima portrait painting demonstrations

There are hundreds of instructional videos and painting demonstrations for purchase on the web and I don’t want to question their use. They are mostly narrated and good ones also show the palette and the colors that are used throughout the painting process. For example Cesar Santos’ video (LINK) is a very good one with hours of instruction. Also Scott Waddell’s instructional videos are very excellent and I like them very much (I wrote about it here). But there is also a lot of free … Read more

Eyeballing

Eyeballing is a very usefull and necessary technique to be able to spot differences between the reference and your artwork. As a child I loved to make these ‘spot the differences’ games that were printed in magazines. The more difficult the better. And so it is with your art training at home. I guess I won’t have to explain in detail how this works. Just stand back enough to see the reference and your drawing at one glance and then compare – eyes to the … Read more

Anatomy tools

In order to paint a figure correctly you need to know about anatomy – where the muscles are originated, how they work and which bones they move. To just look at what you see is not enough – you’ll need a thorough understanding of anatomy. It is not necessary to be able to name every of the >650 muscles of the human body like a physician but knowing how the body is composed helps a lot in your ability to draw – even with other … Read more

Competition is a good way to become better and staying motivated!

Students at an atelier see the art of their classmates every day. Seeing what others do and to what level they do it is a great factor for motivation. Normally one wants to surpass what others have accomplished and with a Master you have someone who has seen A LOT of student’s art and he can lead you to perfection. Since ClassicalAtelier@Home.com is a website for those who learn classical art at home on their own, it is necessary to provide you with lots of artworks that … Read more

Bargue Drawing – Learning to see in two dimensions

The Charles Bargue Drawing Course is the collected set of knowledge from centuries of academic art education. It is beeing used in classical art academies throughout the world. It was developed and widely used in the mid 19th century as a foundational exercise for fine art training. Since the comeback of traditional values art schools and academies have been formed which follow this proven approach of the great masters. This approach is an essential process in understanding the principles of shape, proportion, value and form. … Read more

How the ateliers teach you to paint like the Old Masters

The academic approach of learning how to paint like the Old Masters is a system that derived from the experience of hundreds of years. This approach is so successful that even a total beginner in arts is able to achieve mastery, no matter what skill level one has. The academies are so confident with that and the results prove them right. For example the Angel Academy of Art accepts students without any restrictions and without a portfolio: APPLICATION Application is open to all: there are … Read more