Workshops

To be a successful artist, it is essential to see things accurately. Enhancing the skills of perception enables the artist to draw or paint anything! For centuries, artists have utilized various aids to seeing. Participants in this workshop have the opportunity to use these aids, allowing for skillful observation and to recreate what they see on paper or canvas. Various ways to measure, make comparisons, define values, see shapes, and identify colors are explored.

Regardless of current abilities, completing this workshop significantly transforms the participant’s capacity to view the world as with new eyes. With improved powers of perception they can create artworks of ever increasing levels of expertise.

This workshop reveals secrets even the old masters did not know! Participants discover the source of all color, elevating their powers of observation to permit identification of hues hiding in plain sight. With this heightened skill, students are better able to replicate colors seen without the frustration of endless experimentation, memorizing formulas, recipes, and complicated color systems or happy accidents. Special focus is placed on assisting the artist to determine the most suitable pigments for producing paintings of quality and unfailing harmony.

Why does a well painted picture often lack the punch that would make it an award winner? Very often the problem is a weak composition. Rediscover the methods used by the ancient masters to design and compose their magnificent and enduring works of art. Learn a simplified, guaranteed approach to designing your own strong, well balanced, and beautifully composed work of art. Acquire the knowledge that will elevate your artwork to the dynamic levels you desire but may have had difficulty achieving. Whether you are a novice or an advanced artist, these timeless principles provide the certain advantage you need to achieve a greater degree of perfection in your artwork.

Norman Rockwell said of this approach to composition that, “Even a clumsy amateur with hands like ham bones could create a beautiful painting.” Emile Gruppe taught that, “You can take a good design, throw it on the floor, and it will look interesting no matter how it lands.” And, “A well designed picture will practically paint itself.”

In the mid 19^th century, Jean-Léon-Gerôme, professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Paris, commissioned one of his best students, Charles Bargue, to produce 196 lithographic models from which he developed the benchmark drawing course that trained the most outstanding classical artists of his time and into the 20^th century.

Following the proven methods for teaching classical drawing, called Sight-Size Drawing, students of the time worked a whole year copying several of these lithographs before moving on to the live model.

Indeed, this three day workshop does not pretend to replace a year at the academy. Still, it will introduce students of the 21^st century to the fundamental principles and practices of this solid, coherent method of teaching drawing in the classical manner.

Using genuine lithographs provided from a selection of original Bargue images, workshop students will learn to correctly set up the lithograph as a model for accurate copying. They will also be introduced to sighting methods that will train and sharpen the artist’s eye and produce a precise, accurate copy of the model’s image.

Learning to properly prepare and manipulate the correct drawing tools (graphite or charcoal) will lead the student to a refined, classically rendered finish to the model’s copy.

Having laid the foundation for becoming an artist through the Transformation Series of workshops, Bob provides students with the building blocks needed to become a much more skilled and accomplished artist.

Many artists wonder what to do to make their drawings more lifelike. This workshop is designed for artists who wish to learn techniques that will take their drawing to a new level of realism.

Emphasis is placed on acquainting participants with the use of an assortment of drawing tools. Blending methods utilizing a variety of materials to create a diversity of textures and a complete range of values are highlighted.

Using skills acquired in this workshop, participants are guided through a final exercise which often gives some level of apprehension. When completed, the proof will be evident that ANY STUDENT can draw ANYTHING that he or she sees with incredible competence.

A reference photo and the basic outline of the subject are supplied by the instructor so participants can focus on practicing the techniques learned.

Students in this workshop will be familiarized with the fundamental principles of drawing, enhancing their ability to see the basic shapes, forms, and values that make up the landscape.

Participants will learn to “read” a photograph to accurately discern its weaknesses and to discover its hidden artistic gems.

By integrating nature’s inherent proportions into the artistic process, students will receive the rudimentary essentials of composing a masterful landscape drawing.

With only a few basic tools used by master artists for centuries, each student will be instructed to properly design, construct, draw, and render a realistic, even a photographic, image of their chosen landscape on paper.

Regardless of your current level of achievement, this workshop allows you to explore various styles and techniques of painting with oil paints, preparing you to achieve a greater degree of proficiency in your own work. Learn to see a subject as a painting and how to compose a dynamic image from that subject. Participants learn various methods of starting, building, and finishing a painting. Learn to choose materials, pigments, and tools appropriate for creating a well executed painting.

Through discussion, demonstrations, and practice, become skilled at mixing the colors seen in the environment and in the subject selected to paint. Consideration is given to mediums used with oil paints and a variety of supports available for an oil painting.

You will Investigate a variety of ways to apply oil paint to your painting surface to best represent the subject you choose to paint. In conjunction with the study of color and color relationships, explore the use of value, line, edges, texture, rhythm, and atmospheric perspective to effectively focus a viewer’s attention on your painting’s center of interest.

Regardless of your current level of achievement, this workshop allows you to explore various styles and techniques of painting with watercolor paints, preparing you to achieve a greater degree of proficiency in your own work. Learn to see a subject as a painting and how to compose a dynamic image from that subject. Participants learn various methods of starting, building, and finishing a painting. Learn to choose materials, pigments, and tools appropriate for creating a well executed painting.

Through discussion, demonstrations, and practice, become skilled at mixing the colors seen in the environment and in the subject you’ve chosen to paint.

You will Investigate a variety of ways to apply watercolor paint to your painting surface to best represent the subject you choose to paint. In conjunction with the study of color and color relationships, explore the use of value, line, edges, texture, rhythm, and atmospheric perspective to effectively focus a viewer’s attention on your painting’s center of interest.

This workshop covers the step-by-step process of drawing a portrait. Topics covered include: posing and lighting a model; photographing the model; the proportions of the average head; sighting the proportions; and placing the features of the head upon paper to get a likeness.

Through discussion, demonstration, and practical exercises to familiarize you with a variety of drawing materials, application of materials, blending tools and techniques, as well as using erasers as drawing tools, you will complete a lifelike portrait drawing.

Once a realistic likeness has been achieved, Workshops focusing on Painting the Portrait in Watercolor and/or Oil Paints can follow.

The participants of this groundbreaking workshop gained a deep insight into the means and methods of composing artworks used by master artists for millennia, but lost to most modern artists and art forms. Each achieved one or more compositions from their own photographs for paintings that may have the potential of being award winning works of art.