Fourth Session, Spring

 

Third Session, Winter

The Winter Sessions started January 19th. I decided to sign up for Nathan Fowke's Head Painting class. Nathan graduated with honors from the Art Center College of Design and is currently a visual development artist at Dream Works. The buzz was that he was a wonderful teacher but he required a lot of homework. I took the challenge and found myself using my own head for much of the homework. We started with black and white value studies with chiaroscuro type lighting, then we used Zorn's limited pallet, and finally a full pallet with overhead lighting.






















My grandson, Eric West, came to LA for a family visit and I did his portrait for homework. He is the one that looks like Jesus Christ.








Nathan's final assignment was to copy an old master's painting. I choose John Sargent's Lady Agnew. I cropped it so it would fit on a 24X30 canvas. He was pleased with my brush work.











I really liked Johanna Spinks, she puts a lot of energy into her class, so I decided to continue taking her Figure and Still Life Painting. Johanna always does a quick
demo and still finds time for each student.

Johanna not only shares her knowledge in the classroom, she keeps us informed through her blog. She gave me the courage to start this blog. I now consider her my Art Reporter. She writes very well and with her British accent!


I visited her studio, we had lunch, and I got some ideas about setting up my own studio in Texas.
































I also stuck with Ignat's 5 hr. Alla Prima Figure Painting class, but this time I forced myself to tackle the entire figure, not just the top third. He set up some very dramatic lighting and really pushed the values and temperatures.

Second Session, Fall

For the second session I signed up for Richard Morris' Figure Construction Class. Richard attended and taught at the California Art Institute. Richard had a different approach than Kirk, but they were both good instructors. I continued to try to learn more about human anatomy and drawing.






I decided to start painting this session. There are so many wonderful teachers that it was hard to choose, but after checking their style and talking to other students I decided on Ignat Ignatov and Johanna Spinks.

Ignat grew up and attended renowned art schools in Bulgaria before coming to the USA. He is influenced by Fechin, Sargent, Zorn, and Sorolla. His class is called Alla Prima Figure painting; a 5 hour class with one pose. Time to put all this drawing to a test. His model is always nude with strong lighting.

Well, as it turns out, I am over whelmed with trying to paint the entire figure. So I just choose to concentrate on the top third.





The other painting teacher I choose was a charming, award winning British portrait artist, Johanna Spinks. Her mentor and teacher is the master artist Everett Raymond Kinstler. She studies old masters like Vermeer, Valasquez, Sargent, Sorolla, Laszio. Her 3 hour class is called Figure and Still Life Painting. Students can choose to paint a still life or the model which is always dressed up interestingly.

First Session, Summer

Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art, LAAFA, is a classical art school offering student mastery in academic drawing, painting, and sculpture. It seems that in the art world today there is a movement to return to the way our old masters studied art. This school offers that foundation with a west coast flair. Their Atelier school offers a three year degree program. For the working, professionals and retired people like me, they offer 10 week Sessions that meet days, nights and weekends. Check-out their website at www.laafa.org


You can't yet enough drawing, so I started my first 10 week session with two drawing classes. Figure Quick Sketch was taught by a Hawiian student from The Art Center College of Design, Kirk Shinmoto. We had wonderful California style models. He always started the class with quick gester drawings, then longer anatomy studies.





Head drawing was taught by a California artist, Aron Westerberg. He started class with 4 or 5 quick sketches before sharing his keen eye with longer poses. Aron gave homework, as many of the drawing teachers do, they want you to draw, draw, draw.














I also took a class in composition, taught by an artist from Scotland, Douglas Kirk, who came to LA to become an animator as well as paint. We created compositions with paper cut-outs, limited values/colors. The pink and purple one is a study of the composition of Seurat's "Sunday on La Grande Jatte". The green and black one is my patio gate with cat in the window, a homework assignment. I got carried away with detail, said the teacher.








On Saturdays I enjoyed getting to know LA with Plein Air painting; did not produce any paintings, but it helped me to see warm and cool colors in landscape on small 4X6 canvas boards. It was a great way to see the beaches and hills of California.