For the self taught realist artist
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). … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more